Like most successful lobbyists, Carleton Ching is a perfectly nice fellow, but this week, the state Senate wasn’t thinking nice. It was thinking votes.

Specifically, it was thinking how it could defend a vote for Ching, a longtime influential lobbyist for a major land developer, in the face of an increasingly potent environmental movement.

"Most of the nominee’s responses reflected the perspective of a career spent advocating on behalf of private developers of land, and not of a person who understands or fully appreciates the stewardship of public trust responsibilities," read Sen. Laura Thielen’s committee report recommending against confirming Ching.

Thielen, who herself is a former land board chairwoman and director of the state department that Ching would have led, said Ching was asked how he would balance a development proposal that would impact a native Hawaiian forest.

"No concern was expressed or even acknowledged by the nominee regarding Hawaii’s rapidly disappearing native habitat, nor of the possibility that cumulative impacts of development may possibly result in placing a priority on the need to protect the resource rather than simply balancing the competing needs as equal when making some regulatory decisions," Thielen’s report stated.

So in a Senate filled with Gov. David Ige’s former colleagues, there was not a majority who could argue that in Ching they had someone you could trust to "malama the aina."

The raw numbers showed that Ching was an unpopular pick. Thielen’s Water and Land Committee had 1,120 people who spoke or wrote in opposition and a petition with 7,596 signatures in opposition. In favor were 272 individuals and organizations.

Ige used a low-key, quiet and informal lobbying tactic to win support for Ching. The nominee met privately with many environmental groups and with community members across the state.

It was a tactic that did not move the needle.

If anything it helped establish Thielen as an organized and professional committee chairwoman who wouldn’t duck a tough call.

She came away saying she was still in Ige’s corner.

"I was an early supporter of David Ige as governor. We don’t always agree on issues, but I think he is a good governor," Thielen said in an interview after Ige withdrew Ching’s nomination.

And Ige is not going to pick a fight with the Senate.

"I respect the Senate. I had been there for a long time. They are committed to doing what they believe is their job," Ige said in a news conference after the defeat.

What is clear is that Ige did not get his way. Ige felt that he could not turn back from the nomination until the very end when it became clear that Ching did not have a winning majority.

Ige says he "learned a lot about the process. … Obviously a lot of lessons were learned."

While Hawaii’s new governor is trying to rid himself of the "In Training" badge, something else was dropped in the Carleton Ching loss: a chance for the new administration to establish publicly its priorities regarding the environment, a good open and public discussion of what Ige wants for Hawaii’s future, with specifics regarding how development will either be encouraged or controlled. Is it waterfalls and fish or jobs, and where does Ige stand?

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