Better economy, few rivals big birthday gifts for gov

Someone said to me, ‘75 is the new 40.’ I said, ‘No it isn’t.’"

That was Gov. Neil Abercrombie last Wednesday, who is still a daily regular at the Nuuanu YMCA, enjoying a joke with the news media on his birthday.

Unusual politicians have unusual goals, but after 40 years in offices ranging from City Council to Congress and now governor, Abercrombie’s goal is four more years in office.

He wants to claim a second term by preaching the politics of happy activism.

"My job as I see it right now from the perspective of my birthday today is to take what time I have and try and keep that momentum going and try to encourage it, and it encourages me also.

"I am just really infused with a lot of energy," Abercrombie said.

As is the way of politicians, Abercrombie celebrated his birthday with an estimated 500 supporters who paid $2,000 a head to toast him at a fundraiser at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Wednesday night. The really nice gift the money will help buy is a second four-year term in Washington Place.

During his introduction, lobbyist and political confidant John Radcliffe recalled how "in the early days of his current administration, Abercrombie’s ratings were pretty low."

Adding that Hawaii governors get blame or praise for all sorts of things, Radcliffe announced the governor by saying "Right now, things are going great."

In California, another 75-year-old Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, was the subject of an interesting piece in the blog Real Clear Politics by Lou Cannon, editor-at-large for State Net Capitol Journal.

Cannon reports that Brown is leading a turn-around in a state once dismissed as the basket case of the Great Recession.

"Brown cut back on services, from education to medical care, and promised that more cuts would be necessary unless Proposition 30 (tax increase) passed. The strategy worked. As Business Week put it: ‘Brown scared California straight,’" Cannon wrote.

In Hawaii, the economy was never in a California freefall, although the economic recovery is as much implied as it is real, but there is enough to fashion a set of campaign themes for Abercrombie.

Abercrombie was denied his two-year litany of proposed tax increases that he said were needed to balance the state budget, but the state budget leveled off enough for him to loosen some spending.

State workers first saw 5 percent salary cuts restored and then won pay raises and long-term contracts.

Abercrombie has devoted much of his administration to encouraging accelerated redevelopment of urban Honolulu with the hopes that increased construction would act as an economic stimulus.

On a social welfare level, Abercrombie has been one of the nation’s first governors to declare full support for the federal Affordable Care Act and will have to adjust Hawaii Medicare for what are expected to be increased costs.

For his re-election campaign, Abercrombie is in somewhat of the same position as his Republican predecessor, Linda Lingle.

The economy is either strong or getting that way; the political opposition is mostly muted and there is no real challenger approaching.

Lingle raised and spent more than $5 million in a campaign over only token Democratic opposition.

With no GOP or Democratic opposition on the horizon, Abercrombie appears today set to celebrate his 76th birthday settling into a comfortable glide path to a second term.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.