It was October 2011 and Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s chief of staff and communications director, as well as their deputies, had resigned, when a national political polling firm rated the long-serving Democrat as the least popular governor in the United States.
The fall from grace measured by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, N.C., showed Abercrombie losing 20 percentage points in six months.
As it turns out, despite his assertions that "I play all four quarters," there was no halftime regrouping.
"What I believe I need to do is to keep going with the plans that we have underway right now and to give people an opportunity to examine what it is we’re doing and what we’re going to do and to see whether we can deliver on that," Abercrombie said three years ago, in reaction to the polling.
Today Abercrombie is ending a 40-year political career after taking a shellacking in his re-election attempt, losing to underfunded and at the time, unrecognized state Sen. David Ige, 2 to 1.
The Hawaii Poll taken earlier this month by Ward Research for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now, shows that Abercrombie leaves with a full quarter of the voters saying he did a "terrible job" as governor.
On a scale of 1 to 5, Abercrombie’s median rating was 2.53, a "D+" at best.
Just 4 percent of Caucasian and Japanese-American voters said Abercrombie did "a great job."
With a winning legacy in wreckage, what can be learned from the defeat?
Asked about the impact of Abercrombie’s election disaster, former Gov. John Waihee, who endorsed and campaigned for Abercrombie, said the defeat rewrites the political assumptions.
"You can’t take for granted that an incumbent is unbeatable within his own party. Before Neil, it was unthinkable that a governor in Hawaii could lose," Waihee said in an interview.
Waihee, who served as governor from 1986 to 1994, said state leaders should not change policies or direction because of popularity.
"Some people think everything is just about elections; that is not the case," Waihee said.
What should change, however, is a political leader’s ability to communicate.
"I don’t think you change your convictions, but you need to be more in tune with a new communications era," said Waihee.
Historian and author Tom Coffman, a former Abercrombie supporter and adviser, said Abercrombie crumbled both in the polls and popularity not because of communications but because of his policies.
"Between 2010 and 2012, the developer/construction complex went berserk, and Neil led the way," Coffman said in an email interview.
Abercrombie’s early identification as the catalyst for the rapid rebuilding in Kakaako became a metaphor for everything he did wrong, Coffman said.
"And then there was the marginalization of those with whom he disagreed," Coffman said.
From losing his communications team and then plowing ahead without listening to the complaints of voters who didn’t like his plans for Hawaii, Abercrombie became an example of how not to communicate.
Whether he thought he was listening or he was in sync with voters, Abercrombie’s rejection both in the polls and in the voting booth shows the depth of his misjudgment.
Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.
