Posted by Free Hawai`i on December 3, 2008 at 7:41pm
Gov. Lingle Skips Meeting With Barack ObamaBy David Shapiro - Honolulu Advertiser ColumnistYou have to wonder after her baffling decision to skip the governors meeting with President-elect Barack Obama. Where are the sharp instincts that got her elected Hawai'i's first Republican governor in 40 years?The snub looks disrespectful at best, and at worst petulant for the governor of Obama's birth state, who spent weeks on the Mainland campaigning for the Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin....The new president will be asked to support many Hawai'i projects and it's time to mend fences, not burn more bridges. Even Palin was among the 41 governors attending the Philadelphia meeting called by Obama to discuss the national economic crisis and the challenges facing the states.Lingle said she didn't go because the one-day meeting required three travel days and she was needed at home to deal with the state's growing budget deficit.Such concerns didn't stop her from making three Mainland trips for McCain and Palin while state departments were struggling to make budget cuts of up to 20 percent she ordered. She also made an 11-day trip to Asia to promote tourism....Failing to demonstrate cooperation with the new president pointlessly opened Lingle to criticism from Democrats and was the latest in a series of dumb political moves you wouldn't expect expect from a Republican prodigy who got herself elected governor twice in a strongly Democratic state....
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