Chad Blair: Aloha everybody. Welcome again to the Pod Squad. Chad Blair with Honolulu Civil Beat. The topic today is Governor David Ige, just finishing his first year in office.

And joining me to discuss the pro and the cons and what we might be able to look forward to in 2016, is Neal Milner. He’s a columnist for Civil Beat and a retired professor from the University of Hawaii and political science. Hi Neal …

Neal Milner: Hi Chad.

Blair: Welcome back.

Milner: Sure.

Blair: And someone who’s not retired from the Political Science Department…

Colin Moore: Not yet …

Blair: Not yet, but is looking forward to it some 30 years hence maybe, is Colin Moore, a political science professor, who’s also a frequent guest on the Pod Squad and joins me now and then on PBS Hawaii Insights. Hi Colin …

Moore: Great to be here Chad.

Blair: I should let you know you can subscribe to the podcast that we do here at Civil Beat, on iTunes and Stitcher. You can also visit our website at civilbeat.com, where you’ll find the Pod Squads, podcasts in general listed prominently. You can also follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Well Neal, what do you think? How did David Ige do 12 months in now?

Milner: Well I guess if I had to give him grade, I’d say slightly above average. He’s done certain things that are very respectable and very necessary. And one of the reasons he gets so much credit for that is the bar is so low in the state. A good example is the whole IT infrastructure stuff and housing. The governor did very sensible things that should have been done a long time ago for a system that has been chronically close to useless in both of those categories.

Blair: Decades old in many ways …

Milner: Decades old, that’s right. And for that, he should get some credit. But it’s not exactly a creative solution. And he’s been fortunate in the sense that he hasn’t had to face a crisis, that’s the one thing I’ll add. The telescope came close, but he got … he finessed his way out of it, not by anything he did, but by what the courts did. And that was, I think, going to be a very significant test of his leadership skills, and he didn’t have to go very far with it.

Blair: Okay. Now you mentioned an average grade, now come on, you’re a professor, allowing for grade inflation I’m sure, what does that work out to? Is that a B? Is that a C?

Milner: I’d say about a … I’m a hard grader … I’d say about a C-plus. Partly, I think I’m being a little bit tough on him, but I think there’s certain things that he does and that he doesn’t do, that are subtle (that I want to talk about later), that would lower the grade a bit.

Blair: Alright. And by the way, the governor himself has given himself a B grade for his performance.

Colin, your thoughts on the first year in office?

Moore: Well I guess I’m a little younger than Neal, and we’ve dealt more with grade inflation, so I’ll give Ige a B. I’ll agree with his own assessment, because I do think that he’s taken on some projects that most governors have no interest in. I mean, improving the IT infrastructure, moving to a paperless office. I mean, these are the things that he’s wanted to do. He’s the only governor in America who’d get excited about attending a seminar on an e-signing program for state procurements.

Blair: And he really does get excited about it. He was in the office the other day for an Ed Board, believe me, you could just see his eyes light up.

Milner: But that’s what I mean though about the low bar. You know this stuff is back in the Wang computer days.

Moore: That’s absolutely right. And I entirely agree with Neal in that he hasn’t faced a major crisis other than maybe the telescope.

Blair: Well actually, let me ask you about Carleton Ching. Now, it seems like ancient history, and I can tell you this, just the other day, he defended that nomination for the Land Board. Said he still wished Carleton Ching could have made it — of course he didn’t, they had to withdraw. Susan Case is now on board — that doesn’t rise to the crisis level?

Moore: Well it was a communication crisis. I think, if anything, this gives you an insight into his personality. He is, he can be, a stubborn guy, and you saw that with the Ching crisis. He’s totally unapologetic about it. I doubt he thinks he’s made any mistakes in his time in office. I mean he’s not willing to concede any of these points…

Blair: You’re actually exactly right on about that. I said, “well look, don’t you reflect a little bit and think about it,” and he said “nah.” I mean, he just moves forward. He loves that paperless office. He loves the IT stuff. Let me tell you, get him talking about tax modernization, you better set aside an hour, that’s all I got to say.

Milner: I’m looking forward to it.

Blair: Sure you are.

You were talking about some subtleties …

Milner: Some subtleties, here’s an example, and I’m actually going to write about this I think for Civil Beat. The way he handled the university’s budge request last week, especially for athletics, he did it in a way that was very engineer-like. He said, “you set your priorities, and then you decide what you want.”

The problem is, and it’s like engineers who are not creative, that’s not the box in which you have to look at this. This is about a community resource that the university offers to the community. It’s not a student resource. Students don’t support football, and they’re never going to support it. This is an urban university offering something to the community that the university simply can’t pay for on its own. And so, another way of looking at it is kind of dismissive. He’s done that with a couple of other things. He’s been, I think, kind of dismissive even with NextEra.

Blair: Well let’s talk about NextEra in this regard. He certainly come out against the merger deal — NextEra purchasing Hawaiian Electric. Do you think the governor has done the right thing when it comes to this very major question concerning our energy future?

Moore: Well, I’m confused about his position because he has come against it, but he hasn’t given a lot of clear reason. He’s against it, but there’s going to be a commission, I mean there is one. And so, I think this gets at a larger problem with the Ige administration, which is, he always claims that he’s not a good communicator — and he’s not. But, there are costs to that. I think there are public policy costs to his, I think, inability to really chart a clear direction for the state.

I think you see this with NextEra. You certainly saw this with his slip-up about Syrian refugees. I mean, that could be considered one of his proudest moments, I thought. I mean, what he said was right, but the fact that he didn’t anticipate that there would be this reaction, that he couldn’t mold public opinion, or warm people up to this idea …

Blair: Or maybe his staff didn’t prep him before that …

Moore: Right.

Blair: Given that governors were already coming out and say they’re going to buck the Obama administration in terms of accepting refugees from Syria, instead he sounds like, “well, we’re all about aloha, and of course we’re going to welcome these people,” and suddenly there’s a s-h-i-t storm. Here he had good intentions, but his skills as a communicator worked against him, is what you’re saying.

Moore: Absolutely. My impression with the whole administration is that, you have this ship, and you have this incredibly talented navigator who’s really working on the map in the bottom of this ship very carefully, but it’s not really clear where we’re going, or where it’s being driven. And that’s part of the governor’s job. I mean, he’s not just a technocrat. He also needs to be a communicator and a leader.

Blair: You know, one of the things that Neal Abercrombie said is, “you got to have someone who can have vision,” remember him, “we’re all going to paddle to shore together … it’s a new day Hawaii.” And Neal Abercrombie, very powerful on the stump, very strong communicator, and yet he lost by the greatest landslide in a primary for a governor in the nation’s history, amazingly so. And here comes this guy, who’s an engineer from Pearl City or Aiea (I can never which one)…

Moore: Pearl City …

Blair: Thank you, who does not have these skills at all, who’s teased about sounding like a Muppet character, and yet he defeats him, and goes on to defeat three other candidates in the general election, do you think he’s doing what he said he’s wanted to do the most? Show a collaborative style of leadership where he’s actually listening to a lot of different parties, and then ultimately making the right decision?

Milner: I have no idea because that kind of information is not communicated. He certainly has made good on his promise of toning things down.

Blair: Yeah, there’s no, “I’m going to roll over the AARP,” or “to hell with Pro Bowl”

Moore: No screaming at nurses …

Milner: Considering the bombast of before …

Blair: There’s that word again …

Milner: That bar was set in a way that Ige, simply by saying, “I can quiet things down,” and that he has done.

Blair: Well Colin, I’ll give you one final shot at the governor, David Ige, anything you want to say about this first year in office?

Moore: I’ll say that he’s done what he said he was going to do. And that’s what the voters voted for. They voted for a quiet guy, a technocrat, who said he was going to make government more efficient. We’ll see if they still want that if there ever is a major crisis. I mean he’s had a pretty easy go of it so far. But I’ll give him credit for doing what he said he was going to do.

Blair: Well let me just ask you, what is a major crisis? Are we talking about a natural disaster?

Moore: Absolutely. And it would be a time where being a communicator would be a key skill, and he’d have to figure that out and whatever. I mean, being a good communicator doesn’t mean that you give fabulous speeches, it could mean a variety of things. But he seems to be pretty poor at all those aspects of communication.

Blair: I remember even Abercrombie, here he is looking at losing his primary, and the day before we’ve got double hurricanes heading to the Big Island, we’re going to have to cancel the election in a couple of (precincts), and he got on TV and said, “hey look, we’re going to be okay, let’s just pull together.” And it turned out to be his last, if you will, I mean his last big hoorah.

Neal, final point from you about David Ige.

Milner: Well I was going to say, the test doesn’t necessarily have to be anything as dramatic as that to see what his leadership is like under stress. What I’m talking about is, any kind of political conflict that has divided people in a pretty fundamental way, and that would require him to come down on one side or the other. That’s what TMT was gradually moving towards. He was backing and filing and bureaucratizing that conflict. So I would say that I don’t know if he has that skill or not because he’s really been untested.

There are whole lot of quiet people who are extraordinarily good in those situations because they add a kind of quiet confidence there. I don’t know if that’s the case with him, because as I say, there hasn’t been a test.

Blair: Well, Neal Milner and Colin Moore, it’s always a pleasure to have you on the Pod Squad. I have a feeling you’ll be back again and again come 2016. You will join me won’t you …

Milner: I accept the draft.

Moore: Happy to be here.

Blair: Thanks guys. For another edition of the Pod Squad, Chad Blair with Honolulu Civil Beat. Take care and aloha.