Press conference puts Lingle on defense

By B.J. Reyes

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Dec 03, 2008

Lingle Defends Decision To Skip Obama Meeting

Governor Lingle turned down the President -elects invitation saying she has other more pressing state matters.

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The Republican governor has been criticized by prominent Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, for not making more of an effort to join the other governors at yesterday's meeting of the National Governors Association in Philadelphia. According to the Chicago Tribune, the only other governor not seen at the meeting was New Mexico's Bill Richardson, Obama's nominee as secretary of commerce.

Lingle said she spoke Sunday with Valerie Jarrett, head of Obama's transition team, about potentially meeting with the president-elect at a later time, likely in February, when she attends another scheduled meeting of governors in Washington.

Jarrett and other members of the transition team are expected to visit Hawaii later this month and Lingle said they plan to meet at that time.

"My actions were not meant to be, in any way, disrespectful of the president-elect or anyone else," Lingle said. "It's simply to carry on what I felt were my obligations here at home knowing that I had many other opportunities coming up.

"The president-elect was very understanding and so was his team, and they respected my decision to be here."

Lingle said she was on a conference call with Republican governors Sunday night, and she did not feel she missed anything substantive at the meeting.

"I'm certainly up to speed on what the expectations were," Lingle said. "I would've likely just listened and brought greetings from the people here."

In Philadelphia, Obama promised swift action on an economic plan "to solve this crisis and to ease the burden on our states."

Obama has set a goal of saving or creating 2.5 million jobs to boost the economy, which experts say has been in recession for the past year.

Incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told reporters that in a private portion of the meeting, Obama and Republican and Democratic governors agreed that the measure must focus heavily on money for infrastructure as well as bureaucratic reforms to make it easier to complete programs without having to cut through piles of red tape.

Lingle said Hawaii will be ready.

"Every state in America has projects ready to go," she said. "It's a matter now of waiting to see what the plan will be, what they'll put forward, how long it will take to roll out."

Without being specific, Lingle said airport, highway, harbor and University of Hawaii projects would be among those ready to proceed.

The National Governors Association includes members from the 50 states and five U.S. commonwealths and territories.