I have been slow to comment on the disarray in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office, mostly because I have no insider info and am still trying to make sense of the resignations of three top staff, including the state’s administrative director (otherwise known as Abercrombie’s chief of staff).
Right now, Abercrombie’s administration is looking like the gang that can’t shoot straight, and has compounded its political problems by flamboyantly flunking a crucial field test in damage control. Even at this late date, well into a political crisis, the administration is trying to bluff its way through.
This is a very bad idea all the way around.
Best public relations advice is clear at moments like this. Be quick, be direct, and definitely don’t try to b.s. the public.
The corporate world has taken this to heart. When a company has a disastrous quarter and you’re announcing the bad news, the trick is to wrap up all the bad news expected in the next couple of quarters and bury it in the same announcement. The bad press lasts for a couple of days, then you’re out of it. Bad news becomes old news.
The Good Ship Abercrombie has instead tried to hide behind the old and worn fiction that these key staff simply decided that they want “to spend more time with their families.”
Abercrombie spokesperson, Donalyn Dela Cruz, went so far as to attack reporters attempting to look beyond the smokescreen. Dela Cruz told Hawaii News Now:
This is completely on their own terms and for people who think that may be boring and want to speculate and say they couldn’t do this or they couldn’t do that, shame on them for trying to make up stories.
This is a text book example of what not to do in such a crisis. It again appears the administration is trying to avoid disclosing uncomfortable information to the public. And it just guarantees that the story will continue as the dots are connected bit by bit by further reporting, prolonging the crisis indefinitely.
Did the administration fail to seek out crisis management advice, or did they ignore it? I’m actually not sure which would be worse, under the circumstances.
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Abercrombie’s resigning communications director is in his mid-30’s……….. and he wants to spend more time with family?
Right, and Richard Nixon’s departing staff wanted to spend more time with family too.
At some point, Abercrombie must be more like a governor and less like an emperor without clothes. Unless he wants Mufi to take over……..
I think that the remarks by Dela Cruz only made things a lot worse, when this situation was already looking bad for Abercrombie.
If anyone should “spend time with their family”, it should be Dela Cruz. She is like the saying that goes “Nothing like handing a drowning man an anchor to expidite the situation!”.
Many of the blunders in both theory AND execution cannot be blamed on the “young Turks” as some articles are already starting to say. In 10 short months this administration has managed to alienate all without actually getting anything positive done. Executive experience does matter. A lifetime of strong opinions in the legislative seat is no substitute for feeling what it’s really like when the buck stops with you. Neal was never a leader, just talked a good game.
All of the “gaffes” cited in the resultling news stories don’t seem to be the fault of the chief of staff or communications director but came directly from the lips of the GOV. Maybe the departing staff’s weakness is the inability to keeping him between the bowling alley gutters.
From what little I can glean, it is apparent that the Gov’s office did not ignore crisis management advice; they did not seek it in the first place. They just blundered on in the same mode that they have used for the last 10 months. They have destroyed any last shred of credibility with the “wants to spend more time with their families” garbage. They could at least have thrown in a “wants to explore other opportunities” or two.
I told them not to use the old “to spend more time with their families” line.
It should have been “to explore other career opportunities”.
Yeah, that one always works.
:shakes fist of fury at Raleigh: for being faster
time to call in Harold “Cleans It Up” Masumoto…
Given my multiple negative experiences with the Fifth Floor Crew since last December – more than 40 different occasions – I am not at all pleased with DaGov’s leadership. Based upon what I heard from a extremely-reliable source, his Failure To Communicate left him with no other choice but to sbow them the door.
The Big Mystery is Denise Wise’s pending departure. Five days before the announcement that she would be leaving, I had been at a small but highly-effective planning meeting with her – and there was absolutely no indication on her part that she would be gone.
Just a quick reminder – beeing Governor is not Neil’s first job as a state administrator. After his 1986 Primary loss to Mufi for the US House, he was appointed as a member of Charlie Toguchi’s staff in the Department of Education for about 18 months until he resigned to run for the Honolulu City Council.
Wise’s departure truly is for family reasons, as expressed. I’m sad to see her go; but I do believe she left HPHA in a much better state than when she got it!
To a certain extent, perhaps these resignations really were for “family reasons”, as stated — insofar as these people weren’t so much forced out as they really did want to get out.
After all, if the Gov simply wanted new people, he could have just shuffled the departing people into new positions (unless he were trying to cover up some misdeed on the part of the departing).
Perhaps Hawaii’s small-town political system is not everybody’s cup of tea; departing for “family reasons” means one just wants out, and bad. The desire to leave is genuine. For super-educated people, like Hawaii’s son (?) Barak Obama, living in Hawaii is a waking death, unless one enjoys spending a lot of time alone.
The really depressing thing about all this is that the unions are falling into extreme wishful thinking. All we need to do, they seem to think, is get a couple of our guys into the Abercrombie administration, deregulate land use, and — BOOM! — it’s good times all over again. That’s a bit like those who argue that all we need to do is get rid of Obama and “Drill, baby, drill!” and the price of oil will fall. Um, no.
In places like Taiwan, South Korea or Israel, diversifying the economy is a matter of national security. In Hawaii, it’s the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. Even the elite cannot really conceptualize diversification, aside from subsidizing a few shrimp farms in Kahuku. So the default plan is to build more subdivisions.
It’s retarded.
Forty visits to the governor’s office? I think I just figured out why everyone’s bailing.
…is it too early for unappealing Neil to resign “to spend more time with his family” and let Schatz have a shot?
Now there is an unappealing prospect.