One of the movies on our all time favorites list is Three Amigos, the 1986 film starring Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. Lots of great writing here.
One scene reminds us a lot of the Abercrombie administration’s problems with execution of their plan since taking office.
Set the scene. Carmen is being held prisoner in an upstairs room awaiting the arrival of the evil El Guapo. Dusty Bottoms, played by Chevy Chase, manages to crash into the room through the window. Long story there. In any case, it’s the beginning of the rescue. Then comes this dialog.
Dusty Bottoms: Time for plan B. Plan A was to break into El Guapo’s fortress.
Carmen: And that you have done, now what?
Dusty Bottoms: Well we really don’t have a plan B. We didn’t expect for the first plan to work. Sometimes you can overplan these things.
As a supporter of Gov. Abercrombie, I hope Plan B materializes soon.
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Three Amigos is a forgotten classic of the 80s. Long live the amigos!
“Everyone has an ‘El Guapo,’ sometimes their ‘El Guapo’ is the actual ‘El Guapo.”
Aw shucks – I’d love to watch Three Amigos again but Netflix doesn’t have it available instantly.
Plan B:
Gov resigns “to spend more time with his family” or some such “reason.”
Brian Schatz becomes governor… can he then run for an additional 2 terms?
Luck Day had the answer when he said “Well, we are just going to have to use our brains”.
Two full four-year terms. If Brian were to take over next Monday, then his clock would not start running until winning the 2014 gubernatorial election & being re-elected in 2018.
Really big issue would be who would be the LG for the next three years. Appointed for the next three years? Appointed until a candidate could be elected next fall for a two-year term? Holda special election in 90 days?
Per HRS 26-2, the office goes to the Senate president, who must resign that office. If the president declines, it goes, in order, to the speaker of the House, the AG, the director of finance, the comptroller, the director of taxation, and the director of human resources development, each of whom must likewise resign or pass it on to the next in line.
So, yes, the person who succeeds the LG holds that office until the next election.
I’m sure you were dying to know, really. : ]
The Three Stooges also come to mind…
Didnt we have this situation in the 1970s when Burns stepped down and Ariyoshi took over. Who replaced Ariyoshi as LG?
If the wiki is correct, Ariyoshi was not replaced as LG during the Burns term. He became Acting Governor in October 1973 and then ran for the office in 1974 with Nelson Doi as LG. Jean King ran with him in 1978 and John Waihee in 1982. In the meantime, the 1978 Con Con imposed the “two consecutive full terms” limit so he could not run again in 1986.
So at least for a short period of time the state had no official acting LG in 1973-74.
One thing that this sort of criticism of Abercrombie overlooks is that his competitors are also disorganized. There is a Honolulu Magazine interview, if I remember correctly, with Mufi Hannemann’s wife Gail, where she says to the effect that “One thing you need to know about Mufi is that he is really disorganized. He has to be told what to do moment by moment….” And that was one of the laments coming from City government during Hannemann’s tenure as Mayor, that Hannemann tended to micromanage and yell at everybody even though he did not seem to know what he was doing (even though he boasted of his “executive experience” during the gubernatorial election).
The State and City governments are also disorganized in general. When you talk to people who have moved here for longer than a few years, they seem shocked at, for example, the road repair policies. The roads around their house will be in prolonged disrepair, then finally will be repaved; a month later, the road will be dug up for sewer repairs; when at last the road is finally repaved it will be dug up again a few weeks later for some other reason; and it doesn’t seem to end.
The other problem with the criticism of Abercrombie’s perceived or real disorganization is that administration is only part of the job as political leader. In fact, in times of crisis or change, it is the lesser part of the job. The other part is having “vision” — that is, a clear view of a rather different future and being able to communicate that. One is reminded about the Burns’ administration constant drumbeat that Hawaii is NOT going to be a tourist destination in the future, that tourism is merely a temporary stepping stone to a diversified economy (to their credit, the oil-rich Arab states of the Persian Gulf, as old fashioned as they are, bombard their population with the same message, that oil is temporary). That message did not sink in to the populace, or even into the brains of elite within the local the Democratic Party.
One related task of leadership is to give the populace a sense of inspiration and hope even while one is delivering bad news. I am reminded of Churchill’s speech “We will fight them on the beaches…” The actual text shows that the British would lose against a Nazi sea invasion, but it did buck up morale. There is nothing like that in Hawaii. Politicians in Hawaii don’t deliver bad news, much less dress it up in inspiration.
And that’s what is so depressing about efforts by the carpenters’ union to rezone ag land for development. The global housing bubble has permanently burst. But the politicians are afraid of delivering bad news or don’t seem to know it.