In the end, Abercrombie was his own worst enemy

From the rear-view mirror of the Abercrombie behemoth, David Ige must have looked like a joke.

The 57-year-old Pearl City Democrat was just barely there. Where were Ige’s principled stands, his fiery oratory and undying ability to outshout everyone in the house?

Did Ige ever attack Nixon, call Reagan names, or disparage Condoleezza Rice?

Most importantly, who were his friends, his rich pals to give him the money to take on a veteran brand name like Neil Abercrombie?

Even as his political career was ending, how could the 76-year-old Abercrombie imagine the brutal rejection coming?

He was educated enough to have a doctorate from the University of Hawaii, rich enough to throw $5 million on the campaign table and tight enough with the president of the United States to talk about late-night upstairs at the White House on inauguration night.

On Monday, a Washington Post blog announced that Abercrombie was one of only seven governors in the past 30 years to be pushed out of office in a primary, essentially by their own party members.

The national paper called it "obliteration."

Abercrombie lost by 82,886 votes.

By June, former Gov. Ben Cayetano was likening the Democratic primary between Abercrombie and Ige, the common-sense chairman of the state Senate Ways and Means Committee, as a "David v. Goliath affair."

Two things happened this year to cause a political titan like Abercrombie to topple.

First, Abercrombie remained Abercrombie — even in defeat, Abercrombie used his concession speech to talk of his love for Hawaii. He did not understand that the stew he was cooking for himself was political poison.

Unacknowledged by Abercrombie were his threats to "roll over" the AARP for opposing his pension tax plan, his inability to hold together his Cabinet, including the departures of three press secretaries and four communications directors in four years.

As environmental and Native Hawaiian groups rushed to protest his Public Land Development Corp. plan, Abercrombie worked not for compromise but confrontation.

Kakaako, Abercrombie argued, reflected his plan for "work-force housing" but his opponents saw development fueled by the Abercrombie-appointed Hawaii Community Development Authority, which had approved plans for scores of high-rise towers, including one with an obscenely priced $100 million penthouse.

Adding to a mounting public unpopularity was a Legislature that actively disliked and mistrusted Abercrombie. Early on, state senators adopted the policy of only meeting with Abercrombie with at least two witnesses, for fear he would back out of agreements.

The second reason voters demolished Abercrombie was David Ige.

As U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa fights for her political life by doing hand-to-hand combat for the remaining U.S. Senate voters in the Puna district, she may be wishing that she had chosen to run for governor instead of the Senate. If Abercrombie was that ready for a licking, could anyone have won?

Maybe not.

"At the end it was the sparrows, the sparrows came back to life," said state Rep. Della Au Belatti, a Makiki Democrat and Ige supporter. She was referring to the near-legendary ability of Hawaii grassroots campaigns to materialize and organize late in a campaign.

Decades ago the "little sparrows" were a keystone of campaigns organized by Democrats such as Robert Oshiro to help politicians such as former Gov. George Ariyoshi, who at 86, was this year relentlessly campaigning not against Abercrombie, but for Ige.

For Abercrombie, spending 10 times as much as Ige was not the difference; he just couldn’t see the end coming.

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