%20for%20Governor...%20On%20King%20Kamehameha%20Day%20on)
The host welcomes viewers to the 2010 edition of “Up Close and Personal,” a platform designed to inform voters by providing direct access to candidates. The tone suggests the importance of being an informed electorate. The guest is introduced as Representative Neil Abercrombie, a seasoned politician with extensive experience in federal and state government.
- [03:08 → 05:33] Neil Abercrombie’s Political Background and Electoral Challenges
Neil Abercrombie details his extensive political career, spanning over three decades, including 20 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and prior service in the State House, Senate, and City Council. He recounts winning a special election in 1986 and subsequent re-elections, noting that despite facing challenges and controversies, he maintained steady voter support. He underscores his accessibility and willingness to engage directly with constituents, highlighting a consistent dialogue with the public on various issues. - [05:33 → 07:56] Focus on Leadership and Campaign Commitment
Abercrombie identifies leadership as the central issue in his gubernatorial campaign, emphasizing education, job creation, energy independence, food security, environmental sustainability, and economic recovery as critical areas that hinge on effective leadership. He contrasts himself with opponents, noting their lack of commitment or delayed campaign filings, while he is “all in,” treating the race as a full-time endeavor. He stresses the importance of viewing the governorship as a cornerstone role rather than a political stepping stone, underscoring his total commitment and the evolution of a grassroots, volunteer-driven campaign. 
Abercrombie discusses education as a foundational priority, criticizing the furlough Fridays policy that compromises instructional time for children. He argues that adults, not children, should bear sacrifices, and advocates for decentralizing decision-making authority to the school level, empowering principals, teachers, and staff to collaboratively manage resources and priorities. He highlights the dysfunction within the education system caused by budget conflicts and competing interests, proposing a reorientation that puts classroom teaching and teacher support first.- [13:29 → 16:53] Energy Independence and Economic Opportunity
The conversation shifts to energy, where Abercrombie highlights Hawaii’s heavy reliance on imported oil (96%) and the economic drain it causes—sending billions out of state annually. He recalls a 1978 energy proposal he intends to revive, emphasizing the necessity for leadership to drive alternative energy development such as geothermal and biofuels. He advocates for retaining energy dollars within Hawaii to stimulate local job growth and economic expansion. He extends this model to public-private partnerships in housing, citing his success in military housing projects as a blueprint for sustainable, locally beneficial development. - [16:53 → 21:04] Agriculture, Water Policy, and Neighbor Island Inclusion
Abercrombie addresses food security and agricultural sustainability, lamenting the increase in food imports despite abundant agricultural land. He stresses the need for integrated statewide water policy and land use decisions to support sustainable farming, including reservoirs and aquifer management. He underscores the importance of political leadership free from secondary agendas to implement these policies effectively. He also highlights his commitment to neighbor islands, emphasizing equitable resource allocation and rejecting Honolulu-centric governance, noting that he launched his campaign on the neighbor islands and expects their support to be decisive. - [21:04 → 25:30] Leveraging Federal Experience and Relationships
Abercrombie elaborates on what he terms the “Abercrombie advantage”: his deep and longstanding relationships with the federal government, including personal ties to President Obama and bipartisan connections in Congress. He highlights his tenure on key committees like Armed Services and Resources, emphasizing his ability to work across party lines to secure funding and support for Hawaii. This experience, he asserts, will enable him as governor to effectively advocate for the state, securing federal resources and recognition without needing to explain Hawaii’s unique challenges. - [25:30 → 28:45] Commitment to Neighbor Islands and Balanced Governance
The candidate reiterates his historical and ongoing commitment to the neighbor islands, noting his legislative record supporting community colleges and university infrastructure beyond Oahu. He stresses the necessity of a statewide perspective that values and incorporates the needs and talents of all islands, promising a non-Oahu-centric administration. He anticipates that the primary election will be won with strong neighbor island support and vows to maintain their interests at the forefront. - [28:45 → 31:47] Community Engagement and Policy Forums
Abercrombie discusses his proactive approach to policy development through task forces and public forums on critical issues such as energy, agriculture, education, mental health, and healthcare. He emphasizes transparency and inclusiveness, bringing together experts with divergent views to foster dialogue and community input. These forums are broadcast widely via the internet to maximize accessibility and participation, reflecting his commitment to involving the public in shaping policy decisions rather than merely issuing campaign promises. 
Addressing economic challenges and unemployment, Abercrombie highlights his experience in transforming military housing procurement into a public-private partnership that created thousands of jobs, maintained local labor standards, and improved housing quality. He proposes replicating this model for civilian workforce housing to address high rents and housing shortages that burden workers, especially in tourism-driven areas like Maui. He stresses the importance of housing affordability—not just affordability as a slogan—and pledges to mobilize public lands and partnerships to implement immediate housing solutions across all islands.- [36:11 → 40:01] Local Economy, Green Jobs, and Leadership Philosophy
The discussion turns to the potential for a localized economy including barter, trade, and green jobs created through alternative energy initiatives such as wind and solar power. Abercrombie stresses the catalytic role of construction and green industries in revitalizing employment and keeping money circulating within Hawaii. He contrasts his approach to leadership with the current governor’s philosophy, implying that a less confrontational, more collaborative leadership style focused on community consensus is essential to overcoming paralysis in governance. - [40:01 → 43:48] Critique of Current Administration and Leadership Qualities
Abercrombie critiques the incumbent governor’s approach as characterized by ideological conflict with the legislature, resulting in leadership paralysis. He emphasizes that effective leadership transcends management and requires genuine collaboration and trust with stakeholders, including legislators and community groups. He underscores the importance of a leader who prioritizes collective community will over personal political gain, and who fosters respect and shared purpose rather than manipulation or partisan agendas. - [43:48 → 47:06] Vision for Hawaii’s Future
Looking forward, Abercrombie articulates a vision of governance that moves beyond “politics as usual” to empower citizens as active participants in shaping their communities. He stresses the importance of overcoming external global pressures—such as oil dependency, foreign corporate influences, and military imposition—by increasing local control over Hawaii’s destiny. His vision includes a community-based approach that respects family, diversity, and sustainability, aiming for a future where people feel their voices and families truly matter in the governance process. - [47:06 → 51:52] Closing Appeal and Commitment
In closing, Abercrombie frames the election as a referendum on leadership rooted in shared values and community engagement, particularly emphasizing education as the foundation. He highlights Hawaii’s unique strength in diversity and the spirit of aloha as unifying forces that can drive progress. He asks voters not merely for their vote but for their thoughtful consideration and trust, promising full dedication and integrity if elected. He expresses gratitude for the opportunity to engage and looks forward to continuing dialogue post-primary. 
The transcript ends with a reprise of the opening invocation, reiterating the call to unlock hope and make a stand for a better life. The repeated lines reinforce the central theme that meaningful change depends on collective will and faith in the future, leaving the audience with a hopeful and motivational message to inspire action.
Overall Summary:
This interview with Representative Neil Abercrombie outlines a comprehensive campaign platform centered on transformational leadership for Hawaii. Abercrombie draws on his extensive political experience to address critical challenges including education reform, energy independence, food security, economic recovery, and neighbor island equity. He advocates for decentralized decision-making, robust public-private partnerships, and community-inclusive policy development. Emphasizing transparency and grassroots engagement, his vision rejects politics as usual in favor of values-driven governance grounded in Hawaii’s unique cultural diversity and aloha spirit. Leveraging federal relationships and legislative expertise, Abercrombie positions himself as a governor capable of securing resources and uniting the state’s diverse communities toward a sustainable and self-reliant future. The interview concludes with a heartfelt appeal for voter consideration, underscoring hope as the catalyst for meaningful change.
02:41
Aloha! Aloha! Welcome to the 2010 version of Up Close and Personal, which is where you get a chance to sit with candidates. It’s nice for us to vote, but wouldn’t it be nice if we’re informed and we know who we’re voting for? You know, you don’t even look like Edward R. Murrow, either. He was working and looking like me. You guys already know, this
03:08
gentlemen here. Do we call you representative? How do we call you? That would be the nicest thing said to me today. This is Representative Neil Abercrombie. Neil Abercrombie, thank you for coming to our show. Jason, thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Now, you’ve been serving all of us in Washington in the State House of Representatives for 20 years? Well, in the Federal House of Representatives for 20 years and about
03:38
Twelve years or so before that in the State House, the State Senate, and the City Council, I finally found a niche there in Washington. Well, twice actually. I was elected in a special election in 1986 for the unexpired term of then-representative C.S. Eftel, who’d run for governor. And I won that special election and served for three months.
In 1986, the last person to be sworn in by Tip O’Neill, as a matter of fact. Totally coincidentally, but it formed the basis of a friendship and a sense of transition for me, that’s for sure. And then I got re-elected in 1990 to a full term and subsequently elected ten times. Elected ten times? Yes.
04:35
Were you always challenged? Because it seems like you’re… Sometimes more than others. Over that period of time, you get involved with an awful lot of… Well, there’s always controversy, but lots of issues, some of which brought people forward with a little more desire, a little more push than others. But generally, always challenged one way or another. And I’ve come…
05:04
all kinds of percentages of election. I pretty much stayed on course myself, and people seemed, in the end, to conclude that even if they didn’t agree with me about everything, that they were willing to put their faith and trust in my judgment in the Congress for 20 years. That says a lot. And I think it also says a lot that you’re very approachable and available and talk to people.
05:33
Do you get in a lot of dialogue with people about subjects one-on-one? Well, they get into it with me, I can tell you that. They don’t hesitate to let me know everywhere I go what they’re thinking or what they would like me to take a look at. Do you have a number one issue that right now you hear more than anything from people? Yeah. Clearly, with the campaign for governor underway, the issue, if you will, is
06:00
in this campaign I think is essentially a referendum on leadership, what constitutes leadership. And I think the key element in that is education. To be sure, jobs is in it, energy independence, food security, environmental sustainability, an economic recovery that is going to see to it that not only do we
06:28
get more jobs, but that we have a future for our children and grandchildren here in the state of Hawaii. All that is on the table, but it all comes down then ultimately to the question of what kind of leadership are we going to have over the next decade. Now, we are in the primary season, if you will. What would you say is the most significant difference between you and your
Well, the Democratic opponent still hasn’t filed to run, which I think is indicative of what we’re talking about here. I think my commitment is total. I’m all in on this. If this was the World Series of Poker, I’d put all my chips in on this, because I think that’s what you have to do if you want to exercise
07:28
a leadership that sees the governorship as more than a stepping stone in your own political career. I think it has to be a cornerstone. I think that’s the key. Obviously, you had a team of support, or you wouldn’t have stepped away from where you were in a very important position. Well, there’s certainly a team of support out there on every island, and that has evolved. I made up my mind that
07:56
that the leadership void here was so dire that it was going to take a full commitment. And I pretty much very rapidly learned that despite my best intention to try to complete my term, that if I was going to run for governor, I’d have to do it full time.
08:25
I thought it’s dishonorable to be in one position and run for something else and try to pretend that you’re actually doing that job. It couldn’t be done, number one. It probably shouldn’t have been done. We do have a resign to run rule. You know, they can play all kinds of games. You say, you know, what’s the difference? It’s whether or not it’s going to be politics as usual. Using the office for your own political purposes and then…
08:52
trying to manipulate and maneuver the public to think you’re doing something else. All those kinds of things I think people are very irritated with. So I said, look, I’m determined that I’m not going to stand by and let the contenders that I saw out there for governor simply have a free field at it. I didn’t want to wake up the day after the primary. You just mentioned first you’ve got a primary, you’ve got to win your league before you get to the series. I didn’t want to wake up the day after the primary and say,
09:23
maybe I could have made a difference in this, and what did I have to contribute? I mean, people have been very good to me for four decades, 70s, 80s, 90s, and now into the 21st century. So I felt, look, why not, you’ve got that accumulated experience, you’ve got, and your desire is there, and you’ve got the background.
09:49
Don’t sit there and then complain that you don’t think that the paralysis or collapse of leadership is being solved by those who are running unless you’re willing to do it yourself. So I did that. And I think you see now, even while we’re speaking, the result here on Kamehameha Day. And you see what’s happening, people using their office to
10:18
run for governor and so on. People catch on. They know what the score is. They understand that they’re being manipulated. And I think that that’s a major difference in the campaign. We’re developing a team of grassroots, net roots people who are out there. They’re volunteers. They’ve given up even some of their jobs to come and work in our campaign.
10:46
And so I’m very, very grateful that this is really, really a people’s campaign and not a politician’s campaign. You probably have issues that you put in the front of what you’re doing. I know that I really would like to hear from you the things that are important to you because, like you say, you’re out there with the people, so you’re on the pulse of what’s going on.
11:13
If I was asking, I’d be asking, how are you going to create jobs, and where are you going to come up with the money to stop all the furloughs and whatever, and how can we create a local self-sustainability, some kind of deal? Sure. Well, you’re zeroing right in on it. As a matter of fact, as I said in an earlier part of the conversation, this is a referendum on leadership, and leadership involves all that, and none of that can be accomplished.
11:41
jobs, the reallocation of funding with regard to education, food security, environmental sustainability, the kind of jobs. If you don’t have the commitment to be there, if the governorship is merely a way station, if it’s merely a stopping off point until the next thing comes up, if you’re making decisions on the basis of how will this affect my political career down the line,
12:08
you’re going to have a much different set of answers. You’re going to have a much different mindset. You’re going to have a much different expectation of outcomes with regard to those very serious issues. So my point is, Jason, that let me give you a quick example. You would never have had a furlough Friday situation come up had I been governor at the time.
12:32
It’s one of the things that spurred me on. Because how do you take, we’re sitting at this table here, take a look here. How do you take a child’s instruction and put that on the table as a negotiating point? What it means is your sense of values has fallen off the tracks, has been steered in the wrong direction. Because the value should be the education of that child. When you have your values straight, then your priorities follow.
13:00
And the priority is, okay, how do you accomplish that? Well, one of the things is to have a full instruction day. Then you get to your programs or your budget or how you’re going to handle that. Now, there’s lots of ways to handle the situation. You can change what the work day is all about. Maybe we need to reexamine exactly what it means to be teaching and how that works.
13:29
if there’s sacrifices to be made, you can’t ask the children to make them, it’s the adults that have to make it. So, that’s when I began to examine the idea of perhaps decentralizing the authority that now exists with the legislature and so on and the board of education and everybody fighting with one another down to the school level and where you have the teachers, the staff, and the
13:55
and the principal making those decisions and where you can utilize the expertise that’s out there, like say with resource teachers and so on. Now you have a situation, because of this emphasis on budget and program as opposed to what the budget and program is supposed to address, where you have a kind of war of each against all inside the school system. Even among teachers themselves you see a disconnect between the school itself and perhaps
14:24
support systems for the teachers and so we have to put support for the teacher in the classroom first and foremost and everything should be complementing that including the use of resource teachers for example that should be a collaborative effort not something that’s seen as as perhaps rivalry for the same scarce dollar so this is the kind of approach that I would bring to this take energy
14:55
I was at an energy forum the other day and I read from a report that said, oh we’ve got all these alternative energy possibilities, geothermal, biofuels,
15:08
We’re shipping money out of the state by the barrel full, while we’re bringing in barrel fulls of oil. 96% of all our energy has to be imported. I went on and on referencing these things, things with which you’re, I’m sure, very familiar. And I said, that’s why, and I was reading from this report, that’s why I intend to bring an alternative energy proposal to the 1978 legislature. And of course, what it was, I was reading from the energy and natural resources
15:38
Committee of the Hawaii State Senate under Senator TCM 33 years ago. All I had to do was change the dates and the number about what it was costing us to import the oil. That’s all I had to change. And I did, in fact, read it word for word. I had the whole audience there saying, hey, he’s right on it. That’s what the issue is.
16:04
If we’re going to do that, then what that takes is leadership saying, look, we’ve got to go jump into this altogether. And that’s going to take a governor to make that happen. So in order to get the jobs, we have to take some of that $7 billion a year that leaves the state for importation of oil.
16:26
and other carbon-based fuels and start producing our own energy inside the state, keep that money in the state for investment in our jobs in the state, which has a multiplier effect and a churning effect in terms of expanding the economy and by definition the revenue that will come into the state. You can extend that out to ag, you can extend that out to housing,
16:53
joint partnerships, private-public partnerships for housing. I’ve proved that it can be done with the military, the military housing on Oahu in particular. For all the services, anybody who visits Oahu will see that at the various military bases and say, wow, why can’t we have the same thing? And we can. That’s going to produce not only a lot of jobs, but it’s going to produce the kind of jobs where the money stays in Hawaii. And when it stays in Hawaii, it’s invested in Hawaii,
17:22
then the revenues from that and the prosperity stays in Hawaii. It doesn’t go out to Chicago or New York or Los Angeles or Tokyo or Singapore, for that matter, or out to Dubai or to the United Arab Emirates. As I’m sitting here, I just find it interesting and intriguing, I guess, because in 1991, which is a little after you were starting your regime, that’s why I started the whole non-profit, to try to generate that.
17:51
and went to then someone on the council who was the head of the Energy and Environment Committee. Her name was Linda Lingle. And I could never get her audience, never get her attention. And I ended up forming a non-profit about promoting art and music and culture to be able to do the renewable energy environmental thing.
18:13
Now it’s 20 years later, you know, my hair is gray, but I’m happy to hear that that is, I mean, it’s kind of… Well, we have to do it. Right. The question is, is are we going to do it? What I think the only way you’re going to be able to do it, well, I think we have to for survival’s sake, because we maybe have been able to get away with it for 20 years, but we’re not going to get away with it for the next 20 years. The mere fact that China and the industrializing juggernaut in Southeast Asia
18:43
South Asia, which includes India, just that area alone is going to sweep up all the oil, whatever there is. And if we are at a point of diminishing returns on oil production, aside from that which is escaping in the Gulf, of course, then Hawaii as a destination for that oil for importation becomes even more problematic.
19:12
We’re just a little blip on the screen in terms of the use of that oil. There’s no, we can’t command it to come here. And if it does, it’s going to be a top dollar. And so if we’re sending all that money out of the state, how do you expect ever to have an economic recovery worthy of the name? We’re going to be totally the victims of globalized pricing forces and globalized commodities.
19:38
including food. And as the most remote land mass in the world, we should have been self-sustainable and working on it 20 years ago, I can say. And we’re importing more food now than we were in the 70s. What is that about? Well, I think it’s the same thing. We’ve got ag land. How are we going to use it? There’s a big argument. I mean, not so much an argument, but a decision just made within hours of our conversation today about stream revitalization.
20:07
and big arguments about, you know, do we try and keep the jobs going in the plantation? Do we get sustainable agriculture? Is that going to do it? Regardless of what we say about the streams, what if there’s no water in the streams because we’ve got a drought? What do we do about storing water? What about reservoirs? What about tapping aquifers? What about a water policy for not just for the counties but for the state as a whole? If you’re going to have sustainable agriculture,
20:36
If you’re going to try and grow your own food, if you’re going to try and grow as much as you can and minimize the imports, then you have to have a water policy and a land policy with regard to ag that is, in fact, statewide and supported. It means you have to do it. You have to make the decision as a community to do it. And it’s going to take somebody as governor who doesn’t have a secondary political agenda to make that happen. Otherwise, there’s always going to be that element out there.
21:04
in which the person who is exercising the authority as governor is thinking, I wonder how this is going to affect me down the line. I totally understand. So that’s a very big thing, and I’m really glad to see it back here. I also would imagine that your experience in Washington is going to arm you to be, as our governor, someone to be able to take advantage of what’s going on in Washington.
21:31
and know how to bring those dollars back here as well. That’s a good point. In fact, I’ve used that exact phrase, advantage, in conjunction with our campaign, especially when we were just getting underway. I call it the Abercrombie advantage. There was, in fact, an advantage to have me as governor in this context. If you think about the governance situation in our country and in our state,
22:00
you really got the presidency, you’ve got the Congress, and you’ve got the state. And so my connections to the, I was going to say connections to the president, but I meant my relationship and connections to the presidency I think are pretty well known from a personal side. That doesn’t mean in the sense I knew the president’s mother and father, knew him as a young boy, campaigned for him all across the country.
22:25
for years, not weeks or months, for years every spare moment that I had, was chair of his campaign committee out here in Hawaii, and we delivered the biggest vote percentage-wise for him in the country in Hawaii. So, my point there is not that he’s going to do something special for me or special for Hawaii, but rather that
22:51
I’m a known quantity, he’s a known quantity, he knows Hawaii. We can go to him, whoever’s the governor, particularly given the background and relationship we have, we can go to the governor with credibility. Go to, rather, to the president as governor with credibility, and you don’t have to explain Hawaii to him. He knows Hawaii.
23:14
So if we want to jump into some of these areas of innovation and energy and food production and environmental sustainability, he’s going to be ready. Again, as I say, not necessarily give us something special he wouldn’t give anybody else, but rather he understands the unique elements here in Hawaii and why propositions we might put to him in those areas would be something that he would support.
23:42
Then you go to the Congress. I had 20 years of relationships in the Congress, good relationships, both Republican and Democrat. I served on two of the most contentious committees in the Congress, the Armed Services Committee and the Resources Committee. It has everything to do with oil and minerals and parks and ocean and so on.
24:05
So these were some of the most partisan committees in the Congress, and I had excellent relationships when I was chair of the Army and Air Force Subcommittee on Armed Services the last four years. The votes in that committee were virtually unanimous because I kept the mission in front of us rather than the contention between us.
24:33
There were serious issues to be dealt with, no question about that, in funding. And we’re talking about tens of billions of dollars here, hundreds of billions of dollars over time. And I always put the proposition, not between Democrats and Republicans, or to even have a contest between us as to see who would win, but rather say, the object is to provide support for the fighting man and woman.
24:59
in our armed services. How do we do that? Let’s see if we can arrive at a consensus on how to do that. That’s the way I approached it. So, I’m quite confident that that advantage I spoke about, the Governor then can leverage, as Governor, I could leverage that, my experience with the Congress and my experience with the President of the United States in a very positive way for Hawaii.
25:30
When you come to these neighbor islands, do you hear a lot of questions about how you’re going to allocate funds between the central mothership of Oahu and us out here? I often hear Joe Suki talking about, you know, him and some of them that have been bringing monies here. How do you feel about us out of our islands? Well, I don’t have to tell you how I feel. I can tell you what I’ve done, because my record, as I say, goes back over four decades now.
25:59
I’ve always recognized the neighbor islands as central to the idea of a coordinated and synthesized state. We don’t have a state, we have islands. The state of Hawaii is actually the Hawaiian Islands. Now, you can say, well, wait a minute, everybody knows that. Of course they do. Well, they maybe know it in here, but how that actually plays itself out
26:26
something maybe Representative Sukey is referring to when he starts talking about what’s necessary to have attention paid to the neighbor islands. I recall very well when I was a higher ed chair that in the state senate, some people were critical of the idea that we were sending so much capital funds, in this instance, to the big island.
26:50
When I first came into the legislation, we didn’t have community colleges. They didn’t exist yet. We had to create them. We were just trying to put together the University of Hawaii at Hilo. When I said to them, they said, well, you’re here from Manoa. The university’s flagship is there at Manoa. You should be taking care of O’ahu, taking care of the university at Manoa. I said, look, this is a university system.
27:18
That means we have to take all the islands into account. So my record over the years has been one of not only recognition for the neighbor islands and the necessities associated with each county and with each island in its own particular and sometimes peculiar requirements. But when I began this campaign, I literally began it on the neighbor islands and I said that virtually the first statement I ever made with regard to running for governor
27:49
is we would not have a Honolulu-centric, Oahu-centric administration and that I believe and believe now and say to you now that I believe this nomination that will be coming up in September is going to be won on the neighbor islands. There’s no question in my mind that that is the key and I have assiduously and calculatedly and determinedly
28:15
put forward the idea to everyone I can in the neighbor islands that I will have them in my mind and in my heart because I know that in order to be a successful governor we have to, we cannot continue to have just simply an Oahu based or Honolulu based orientation for state government. We’ve got to reach out to the neighbor islands, use the talent and resources that are out here in a positive way that’s going to benefit the whole state.
28:45
You know, I could just pick issues, but you know, there’s so many things going on in our world right now. I could bring up health care, but you know, health care, energy. Yes, well, we’ve been talking, I’ve got task forces on all of these things, and people say, well, that’s not new, but
29:08
But you’ve got to follow through as a leader. Yeah, the difference is that we’ve been putting that out there in a way, not just in terms of promises. Here’s what I think kind of thing. But on the contrary, we’ve been broadcasting, and I hope some of our viewers today have been paying attention to it. In fact, they should check out our, I’ve got one of my cards here for you, Jason. You know, info at Neil M. Yeah, who’s that handsome guy?
29:38
But what’s on here? You know, info at neilabercrombie.com, facebook.com slash abercrombie for gov, twitter.com, neil is slash at neilabercrombie. We can put some of this up on the screen. Yeah, but it’s info. The whole point being is that we’ll be happy to put you on our email list and let you know when we’re having our webcasts of our energy forum, our agricultural forum,
30:07
education, mental health, health care. I put all these things out with panels, not as campaign events as such. I have them at my headquarters and we bring in experts who are not necessarily even supporting me, small business people, all kinds of folks like that.
30:27
from the various professions and the various business and other private interest entities, energy people, you name it, some of whom don’t agree with one another. Like on the egg panel, we had people supporting the seed, genetically modified seed corn and people who were against it and all the rest. We had the panel. And the reason I broadcast these things is to try to get out to the public as a whole.
30:57
email in their questions and all across the state try to indicate this is not just some forum on Oahu that nobody can get to see or participate in on the contract. We have total participation. We have a live audience there in the headquarters. We have the whole broadcast, the whole internet audience that’s out there from webcast and it’s on issues and topics in which
31:24
the various points of views are not only expressed but then I have an opportunity to say to people and to work with the people that are listening in or in the audience as well as the panelists there to learn and to expound to some degree if I’ve come to some conclusion about where we need to go.
31:47
Yeah, there’s all kinds of advisory groups and there’s all kinds of positions you can take, but I’m trying to take it a step further and actually involve the community and involve the people who can give us the information we need to provide the perspective to come to a conclusion on these issues. While we’re having this economic challenge, which obviously is global, do you have any, I mean, I’m trying to get an understanding for the directions
32:18
Now, right now, my job, my income has come from doing the U.S. Census. And I think it’s very telling that when I’m going house to house, I catch people home during the day. There are a lot of people not working, way more than the few people that we see reflected in the unemployment numbers. Do you have any plan, if you will, on how you’re going to bridge this time until we create those jobs? Well, let me give you an example.
32:47
And it’s something that is not abstract, but something that we accomplished. I mentioned before the housing, the military housing. When I was on the Armed Services Committee, on the subcommittee working with Chairman Heffley, Joel Heffley, a wonderful gentleman, a very conservative Republican member of Congress and since retired, we began to work on a bipartisan basis on the following.
33:17
housing for the military was done on a project-by-project basis, which meant that they had to compete with aircraft carriers and being built on fighter planes and deployments and all the rest of it. So, naturally, what happened in something like that is you’d end up with 100 houses or 150, 75 houses, all on different projects in different jurisdictions all around the country. And then you had to go and struggle. If you did manage to get a housing project done,
33:47
struggle for the maintenance money, the management money, and all the rest of it. So I said, look, this is crazy. Why don’t we bring in the private sector? Let’s create a housing program instead of a military construction program. And we wrote legislation to accomplish that. And what we did, to summarize it, is I think unique, and it has literally changed the entire culture of the military.
34:15
And I say the military, I’m talking about all the services now, because this covers all housing for all service members. And what it is, is that we provide the land, it’s all out there already on the basis, and we go to the private sector and say, you fund, you go out and get the financing for building thousands of units of housing, and we will in turn then give you a lease for 50 years.
34:45
You build it, you maintain it, and you manage it under contract with the Army or the Air Force or the Marine Corps, the Navy. And we will see to it then that the basic allowance for housing that’s provided for the military service person and his or her family will be the basis of our collateral, if you will, and the land, of course.
35:11
So you’re getting land essentially for free. You do the financing, the management, and the maintenance, and the service member will have their basic allowance for housing as the way to pay that bill. And we put that together. People were very skeptical. They said, oh, you know, the private sector is not going to come in and do this. Well, of course, they lined up to do it. And so in terms of the person that’s sitting in that house that’s not working, we put the building trades to work.
35:41
People came from the neighbor islands to Oahu to work on that because the bulk of the, the overwhelming bulk of the military housing is on Oahu. And essentially the building trade, and we put together a project labor agreement where we were getting fair wages and even if there was an outside contractor, major contractor or the prime contractor, 90 plus percent of all the work was done by local contractors and local workforce.
36:11
essentially the building trades were kept at an employment level, which for a long time made my congressional district, the first congressional district of Hawaii, urban Honolulu, had the least unemployment of any of the 435 districts in the country. Now that’s no longer the case. I want to do the same thing for the workforce here in Hawaii. Utilize public lands
36:39
utilize partnerships with the estates, with developers who will come in to work combinations of private and public land to build housing for our workforce. I guarantee you that if we’re able to put this together virtually immediately, we will be able to move forward with a housing program on every island for our own people. Look what you need on Maui right now today.
37:08
even where the hotels are concerned. You see the big rebound. You see the headlines today, hotels rebounding, people coming back. But people have a commute time because they can’t live anywhere near the hotels or the condominiums that are going up. The workforce housing is not being built. It’s not there. Or if housing is there, the rents associated with it are so high as it gobbles up an enormous amount of your net paycheck.
37:38
if you are working. So we need to have housing at a reasonable cost. I don’t talk about affordable housing. I talk about housing affordability. And that’s going to take the efforts of a private-public partnership the same way we put it together for the military housing. We’re going to do it for our own workforce housing if I’m governor. With no access to funds now because values have gone down, how are you going to keep things? Have you worked out or looked at any kind of barter and trade
38:08
local currency equivalent to something. There are a lot of people right now who can’t find jobs, and maybe the construction people will be working, which is good, but I’m basically trying to understand if you have any groups already looking at some kind of local economy so that they may not get cash, but be able to keep people sustained. Well, on agriculture we can do that. I mean, look at the water policy here. This has been all hit and miss.
38:38
Is this something new on Maui? When I first came to the state in 1959, there was arguments about water policy on Maui, upcountry Maui, even then, right? And it’s still been going on. What you have to have is a governor who’s going to say, look, we’re not fooling with this anymore. We’re going to make decisions and we’re going to stick with them and we’re going to carry through on it. And your service industries and all the rest of it are…
39:07
generated, I think, by that churning effect, the construction can be a catalyst in that. Green industry, for example, when I talk construction, it’s not necessarily hotels or even housing. If we’re going to have an alternative energy, we’re going to have, that means something. We’re talking about everything from building windmills to solar farms and all, etc., that
39:35
is going to create what I guess are called generally green jobs. But green or not, people are looking for the jobs to come, and it’s jobs that keeps the money here in Hawaii. And that’s the main thing to be looking at, it seems to me. But again, it takes a situation where you have a governor who’s going to be committed to that. That’s probably the biggest thing. I mean, without me going off on a tangent,
40:01
Our present governor has different expectations of where she’s going next. And it’s really, I think, been a deciding issue on how she’s approached this whole governorship. Yeah, I give credit to Governor Lingle for the, shall we say, some of the forms associated with alternative energy initiatives. Attended forms that obviously wouldn’t have taken place absent the
40:30
the push by both the legislature and the governor, for that matter. But they’re not moving fast enough, not even close to moving fast enough. I know, I’ve been talking about it 20 years ago, that’s why I’m bringing it up. Right, and we’re still going there. But she was at the time a council, and then mayor, and now she’s governor. Well, my own inclination is not to look backwards. I’m not especially interested in being critical of the governor.
40:56
I think it makes more sense. No, and I know you’re not. You’re just stating the facts and the record as it has evolved. That’s the problem. I think that part of the reason that happened is you had a disconnect between the governor and the legislature. Part of it was political as such, you know, party differentiation and so on. But the other was the approach. The governor has, as a governor-legal, has a basic Republican philosophy that she has certainly articulated. It’s nothing hidden.
41:26
about less government, or what they call less government, and the end result has been a kind of a conflict and confrontation with the legislature that has been unproductive. And that’s the outcome of it, and I think as governor, having been a legislator in every venue there is, and exercising leadership in that, this has less to do with management as a mayor
41:54
right? Management as an executive, and it has to do with leadership, period. And in that sense, the clash or the conflict with the legislature has resulted in a paralysis of leadership. Some people would call it a collapse, depending on the area. I’ve said that myself, but at a minimum there’s a paralysis on leadership there. It has nothing to do with executives or non-executives or anything else. It has everything to do
42:23
with, are you capable of being the kind of leader that people will respond to? And I think one of the essential elements in that is, is if you’re dealing with a county council, or you’re dealing with a non-profit organization, if you’re dealing with a citizens association of one kind and another, legislators, what they have to know, what they have to believe, and what they, what will cause them to act, is if they believe and understand
42:51
operating on the idea that you as the governor are not trying to maneuver them or manipulate them for your own political benefit, but rather you’re trying to act as a catalyst, as an instrument of the collective community will to get something done. I believe if you’re a governor who cares a little less about the credit and not whether or not advances your own political career, you can get an awful lot done.
43:18
People vote for you and with you for their reasons, not yours. So if you’re looking to have a genuine outreach, it’s more than rhetorical. Well, we want to work together. What they really mean is you should do what I want. So it’s a matter of attitude. It’s a matter of philosophy. It’s a matter of the quality of leadership and people’s perception as to whether you’ve got an agenda other than theirs.
43:48
In these next numbers of months and years to come, do you have a vision of where we can be? And I’m going to give you two terms. Yeah, sure. I don’t think you should run unless that’s what you want to do. That is what I was talking about almost right back at the beginning of our conversation, maybe we’ve come full circle, is that this is a question of what’s your commitment.
44:14
If it’s politics as usual, if it’s the typical political ploy in which the audience, you folks out there, are the object of the campaign rather than the subject of the campaign. If you’ve got your own political agenda and to the degree or extent the audience fits into that fine and dandy, where they say they’re not only an object of the campaign but
44:43
Really, it’s just a question of manipulating or maneuvering around finessing the issues and so on. But then I think you’re going to be discouraged. The demoralization that I see right now will be extended, and people will have a negative attitude, not only towards politics, but towards the possibility of politics, doing something positive and effective for the community, for the family.
45:13
for the voters out there, for the taxpayers out there. So what I see over the next 10 years is something quite different from that, that we won’t have politics as usual because as governor and as a candidate for governor, I’m certainly trying to put forward the idea that this is not about me. It’s not about some political agenda that I have in terms of a career move or anything like that.
45:42
On the contrary, what I think we need to do is to all pull together to take Hawaii to a place that otherwise is going to be impossible, because we will be subject to globalized forces, whether it’s oil, whether it’s food, whether it’s international corporations, investment bankers using the hotel industry.
46:08
the Pentagon simply imposing itself on the islands without so much as a by-your-leave as to whether or not that’s compatible with what’s good for the environment or good for economic sustainability, where you were in effect the receiver. You’re on the receiving end. You’re not any of the deciding end. You’re merely the recipient of what other
46:36
of decisions that have been made by other people for reasons of their own that might not necessarily be compatible with a wise future. So that’s where I think we have the opportunity. That’s why I think we have the opportunity now to have a little bit more control over our own destiny. So where I see us over the next ten years is should I have the opportunity to be governor, that we’re going to move in that direction.
47:06
we’re going to move in a direction of trying to have more control over our own destiny, of having community involvement, have a situation in which people believe and think and act on the basis that they count for something, that their family counts for something, that their community counts for something, and that attention, respectful attention, is going to be paid to their desires and their ambitions for the family and the community here in Hawaii. Well, we’ve been talking for a while, and…
47:35
If you were going to speak directly to your audience here on voters, why don’t you give them kind of a wrap-up? I think it’s time for you to give them a little bit of what I want. I appreciate that. All I can say in that regard is that I do believe that this election, this campaign, if you will, is a referendum on leadership. It starts with education.
48:04
And that whether it’s energy independence or food security or economic recovery, environmental sustainability, that these in the end are all leadership questions. And that in order to exercise that leadership, we have to return to the idea of our values. I believe that part of our difficulty right now is that we’ve kind of lost track of our values.
48:33
Our diversity in these islands defines us rather than divides us. We can see diversity even elsewhere in the nation, I’m sorry to say, and certainly in other nations and regions of the world. Diversity has resulted in pain and suffering and anger and confrontation and conflict. We have the opportunity in Hawaii because of the aloha spirit, the sense of aloha that pervades in our islands.
48:59
to reverse that or certainly be able to neutralize that. That was a message that President Obama, I think, took to the country. I think he learned it as a child in Hawaii, inculcated the values of Hawaii. And if we reassert that, if we re-inform ourselves about what aloha means and what our values are, then the priorities will come from that.
49:29
In Hawaii, we look out for one another. In Hawaii, we place great value on family, not as something to be isolated and insulated from the world around us, quite the opposite. Being in the middle of the Pacific as we are, we know only too well what’s required of us in order to be good stewards of nature and what’s required of us in order to be able to compete in and live in the 21st century
49:59
As it has evolved, the globalized forces that are out there affect Hawaii just as it affects every place else. The question is how do we respond to that? And so if our values are about diversity defining us rather than dividing us, and based on the aloha spirit of respect for family and reaching out to the community,
50:25
If all that prevails, then I think we’re going to be in good shape to be able to utilize the governorship that will emerge from this campaign in a way that does honor to it and pays attention to you, your family, and the community’s needs. People do things in the end for their own reasons, not for mine. I’m not trying to argue you into anything with respect to me.
50:55
that I’ll have your consideration. I try never to ask anybody for a vote. If I ask you for a vote, then I’m asking you to give me something. And that’s not my object. My object is to enable you to have faith and trust that your vote is well cast. That means you have to consider it. That’s what I ask for. I ask for your consideration. I ask for your judgment. I have been judged.
51:24
many times over the past four decades. I guess 30, 35 plus elections out there. So people have put their faith and trust in the judgment that I’ve exercised in office and I’m asking for that same consideration again. And I hope that if you do conclude you can put your faith and trust in a vote for our campaign, that I can in turn assure you that you have my complete and total commitment to it.
51:52
And I will try to honor it and do right by it in every waking moment that I’m given the opportunity as governor to be involved with accomplishing these goals. Thanks very much, Jason. Thank you for taking the time to be here with me. Great pleasure. I know that all of you appreciate it.
52:14
And I think we’re going to probably be back here again. I hope so. Maybe after the primary. I hope I’ve been successful. Thank you very much. Thank you all for joining us. We’ll see you again. Aloha.
52:40
The time has come to make a change The time has come to unlock the hope that lives In each and every one of us And we must do our part
52:58
We hold the visions God dreams of Our hands can heal the ones we love Let’s gather round and let us make a stand For you and me
53:16
Unlock the hope and there’s a better life Unlock the hope, there’ll be no turning back But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope
53:39
The time has come to make a change The time has come to unlock the hope that lives In each and every one of us And we must do our part
53:57
We hold the visions God dreams of Our hands can heal the ones we love Let’s gather round and let us make a stand
54:13
For you and me Unlock the hope and there’s a better life Unlock the hope, there’ll be no turning back But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope But nothing changes unless we unlock the hope
54:42
But nothing changes Unless we unlock the hope Unless we unlock the hope
