Rebranding got gov to top, but then he just messed up

In a national article on Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s demise, local blogger Ian Lind commented that in a small state like Hawaii it’s almost impossible to rebrand yourself once public opinion turns bad.

That’s generally true, but the irony of Abercrombie’s blowout loss to David Ige in the Democratic primary is that he was among the few who had successfully rebranded himself throughout his political career.

Then when he made it to the top, he forgot what got him there and simply blew it.

Abercrombie came into public view in the 1960s as a bellowing, long-haired voice of University of Hawaii antiwar protests.

From his appearance and rhetoric, you couldn’t imagine him getting elected to anything.

He entered politics in 1970 with a tongue-in-cheek run for the U.S. Senate, distributing comics depicting himself as "Super Senator."

He finished far behind, but revealed an appealing sense of humor that would soon charm enough voters to win a state House seat in Manoa.

After that first rebranding, outspoken policy positions delivered with disarming humor carried him to the state Senate and City Council, with hair and beard trimmed more in each election as the remaking continued.

He stifled his fondness for the F-word and on his second try was elected to Congress, serving for 20 years.

Abercrombie’s greatest rebranding was his 2010 underdog fight for the Democratic nomination for governor against high-flying Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

He won convincingly by turning off his own abrasiveness and using Hannemann’s against him in a pitch-perfect campaign that presented him as a mature, experienced leader who could listen and collaborate with civility.

He cut his hair and beard to neat professorial length and when Hannemann showed his fangs, Abercrombie donned blazer and tie to lecture before the cameras, "This isn’t what a governor does; this isn’t how a governor acts."

After he cracked jokes at his inaugural news conference, my colleague Richard Borreca wrote hopefully that this was going to be a different kind of governor.

But inexplicably, the charm soon left the square building and Abercrombie outdid Hannemann in alienating a critical mass of voters left itching for any chance to take him down a peg.

He not only picked futile fights with natural allies — seniors, teachers, nurses, environmentalists, Hawaiians — but used personal insults as weapons.

He double-crossed legislators, flip-flopped on issues, endlessly churned his staff and Cabinet, and antagonized the media with pointless secrecy on judicial picks.

He informed the electorate, "I am the governor; I am not your pal."

If friends tried warning him that this isn’t how a governor acts, he wasn’t listening.

We wouldn’t see the charm again until he accepted his humiliating defeat with considerable grace, which somehow seemed the great shame of it all.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.