Numbers don’t always tell the story.

The just-announced coalition in the state House is a good example. With slightly more than 86 percent of the votes in the House, the 44 Democrats really don’t need anyone’s help in running their majority, except if they are neatly split down the middle.

That’s what happened with the collapse of the present administration of Speaker Calvin Say. The Palolo Democrat has controlled the House for 13 years and had appeared likely to be able to pull it off again with his usual strategy of brinksmanship.

Say had predicted that he would be able to slowly pull away enough votes from the dissident groups or maybe entice a few of the seven Republicans to help resolve the issue.

Souki, the former House Speaker, was wooed by the dissidents to help defeat Say. As soon as the election was decided, Souki started a hurry-up offense that proved effective. In the end the victory came with an unprecedented coalition of the seven House Republicans.

There are some interesting matching philosophies among the coalition members. Windward Republican Rep. Cynthia Thielen, for instance, is a fighting liberal when it comes to the environment.

She is also progressive on social issues.

Souki’s liberal Democrats will find themselves in line with much of Thielen’s thinking. As an aside, Thielen already is getting practice with this coalition business because her daughter is Sen. Laura
Thielen, the Windward Democrat.

In Souki’s previous stint as House leader, he and Thielen often clashed, but today Thielen calls their relationship “always cordial” and points out that she has supported many of Souki’s arguments in past floor debates.

“I would say we have a good relationship,” Thielen said.

One of the big winners of the coalition will be the new GOP leader, Aiea’s Rep. Aaron Johanson. At 32, Johanson was born the same year as the formation of the first bipartisan coalition in state politics, created by former Senate President Richard Wong.

That coalition lasted two years and ended when two of the GOP members, D.G. “Andy” Anderson and Pat Saiki, left to run for governor and lieutenant governor. But along the way, the two-year coalition included many of the leaders of today’s Democratic power structure, including Democratic Party Chairman Dante Carpenter and Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

The elevation of Johanson to GOP and also coalition leader should put him close to the top of the Hawaii GOP food chain, ranking as someone who can get things done. Already the coalition has netted the GOP three vice chairmanships, including a vice chair of the always powerful House Finance Committee.

The caveat in all this is that the coalition meal is actually still in the imu and won’t be uncovered until the 2013 Legislature’s opening day on Jan. 16, when all 51 House members will formally vote for speaker of the House.

Until then, Say and his allies still have the chance of luring away some of the Souki Democrats.

To complicate matters, however, Say is mostly disliked by the state’s public worker unions, who view him as someone who would take away union benefits. So if Souki has support from both the unions and the Republicans, he is likely to lead a most interesting coalition.

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