DAVID ALLIO / SPECIAL TO THE SUN
Republican Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle addresses about 60 John McCain supporters in a GOP rally at the Henderson Convention Center amphitheater on Wednesday.
Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 | 2 a.m.
Lingle
Dick and Jo Takahashi, of Las Vegas, talk to Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle after a Wednesday speech at the Henderson Events Plaza in support of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.
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Beyond the Sun
Echoing the theme of recent John McCain campaign ads that claim Barack Obama associates with terrorists, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle told a small Henderson audience that in this presidential election “it’s the protection of your families that’s at stake.”
If the choice between the Republican and Democratic nominees is “posed in this fashion,” she said, then voters are “going to say McCain.”
Lingle’s stump speech for McCain attracted only about 60 people to the Henderson Convention Center on Wednesday afternoon — chairs were taken away shortly before she arrived. By contrast, nearly a thousand came to the same venue to hear Mitt Romney speak in August.
Besides mentioning McCain’s history of crossing party lines, Lingle hardly touched on the Arizona senator’s record and instead focused on Obama.
Policy wasn’t mentioned. In fact, she said the two candidates can “talk all they want” about their plans on issues such as health care and energy, but it “really comes down to: Who do you want to be sitting in the White House when it comes down to the security of America?”
McCain’s campaign has come under fire recently for what some have called scare tactics, and McCain was forced to diffuse the fears of his supporters and defend Obama at a recent rally: “He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”
Lingle, though, repeatedly framed the presidential election in terms of the physical safety of Americans and painted Obama as a mysterious figure who is uncomfortable with leadership.
She said voting for Obama would put the safety of the country’s children in the “hands of someone we hardly know.” (She also added that despite Obama’s touting he is from Hawaii, she has never met him and he has “never called me on the phone.”)
Ultimately the country judges the president by how he deals with the unexpected, Lingle said, and Obama “is not a person who will make the tough calls.”
Megan McCloskey can be reached at 259-2320 or at [email protected].
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