Well-known Hawai’i news anchor, reporter and author Dalton Tanonaka is running for the lieutenant governor’s seat as a Republican. Tanonaka recently made a Kaua’i stop on his primary election campaign trail. He hopes to become the GOP’s candidate for lt.
Well-known Hawai’i news anchor, reporter and author Dalton Tanonaka is running for the lieutenant governor’s seat as a Republican.
Tanonaka recently made a Kaua’i stop on his primary election campaign trail. He hopes to become the GOP’s candidate for lt. governor in the general election on a ticket that would have Linda Lingle of Maui as the gubernatorial candidate.
“I have skills that would compliment the chief executive, not duplicate them,” Tanonaka told The Garden Island in an interview during his Kaua’i visit. “I expect Linda Lingle to become governor, she’s a proven administrator and I bring to the table the international business and trade connections that Hawai’i needs now.”
The run for the lieutenant governor’s seat is Tanonaka’s first attempt at attaining public office.
Tanonaka, who was born in Kohala on the Big Island, said he is particularly interested in working closely with Kaua’i and other Neighbor Islands.
“All politics are local…the highest levels of government have to be responsive to all, not just to the power center in Honolulu,” he said. “As lieutenant governor I will have regular sessions on Kaua’i on a set day. I’ll come to listen to people’s concerns and take them back to Honolulu.”
He said such forums can directly address concerns that affect Kaua’i’s residents. “Say traffic, people hate sitting bumper to bumper. I’ll go out there physically and see it. Then the state has to be responsive – we need to do it. If people feel we don’t listen in Honolulu then we aren’t doing our jobs properly.”
“We need to connect to everybody in our rebuilding,” Tanonaka said. “I support an inclusive government; if Cayetano is the education governor, I want to be the neighbor island governor.”
While on Kaua’i Tanonaka lunched with GOP mayor candidate Councilman Brian Baptiste and Mayor Maryanne Kusaka, who is also a Republican. “I will rely on them for advice,” Tanonaka said of his campaign on Kaua’i. “I will do my homework. If the state needs to do the things that benefit people of this island then we will do it.”
His visit was coordinated by Rose Ho, party chairperson for the GOP on Kaua’i.
“We need help now,” he said. “It’s a job you can take where you want it to go. (Lieutenant governor) is a ceremonial type position and I think we can’t afford to have that kind of position anymore. I want to give voters value for their money for the first time in a long time.”
“The bottom line is that we’re going to give the state of Hawai’i a real working relationship,” Tanonaka said. “The lieutenant governor historically has done very little – I’ll be working for the people of Hawai’i from day one.”
Tanonaka, who served as a reporter and TV news announcer in Hong Kong and Tokyo from 1990 until late last year, said his “deep experience in the Asian-Pacific region will help Hawai’i tremendously – I can open doors for Hawai’i. We haven’t made the connection we need to make to get us out of the economic hole we are in.”
He also said the visitor industry needs reform in Hawai’i, especially in luring Asian travelers.
“We need to enhance and revitalize our tourism industry,” Tanonaka said, pointing out that Hawai’i needs to know what Asian visitors desire in a travel destination.
“With our location, we have cultural ties we don’t leverage fully enough,” he said.
Tanonaka also sees high-speed Internet connections as an excellent addition and enhancement to Hawai’i’s traditional economic engine. One industry ripe for development, he said, is a fuller-developed call center service, with capabilities of doing after-hours work for Mainland firms, and early-morning work for firms in Asia. With prices being driven down for bandwidth on the Internet, Hawai’i is also a location where stock trading and hedge funds management on a global level could be based. “More and more guys are coming home to trade both markets – they trade New York in the a.m. and trade Tokyo in the afternoon,” Tanonaka said.
Tanonaka’s career in journalism started in Hawai’i, but flourished in Asia where he worked for major international television networks.
At CNN Tanonaka was host of the half-hour program “Biz Asia”. He covered Asian economics and political news that affected business. He also hosted “Talk Asia”, a weekly hour-long talk show. Both programs were produced in Hong Kong.
Tanonaka also anchored for CNBC’s “Business Tonight”, “The Money Wheel”, and “Money, Money, Money” in Hong Kong between 1995 and 1998, while also anchoring NBC’s “Asia Evening News”. Prior to that was the anchor for NHK’s “Japan Business Today” in Tokyo. In 1998, Tanonaka won the Best News Anchor award at the Asian Television Awards in Singapore.
Tanonaka launched his career in 1977 as a reporter for KITV in Honolulu, later becoming a reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser. He then went back to television, serving as an anchor and reporter for KHON-TV in Honolulu, KCNC-TV in Denver and KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon. He moved to Asia in 1990.
He is also the author of three books on the Asia Pacific region: “Dateline Tanonaka”, “Tanonaka in Tokyo” and “‘Tanonaka in Tokyo II”.
Tanonaka is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism.
Editor Chris Cook can be reached at mailto:ccook@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 227).
