Neil Abercrombie is proof that all politicians aren't scum, scammers or scandalous sociopaths.
He's one of those "Coast haole" who arrived here along with statehood--50 years ago-- next year. Neil slid right in.
Today's discussion ranged all over the place, given our mutual proclivity to converse with the abandon of bungee jumpers cursed with blind faith. Will we always land with our head in one piece and a coherent thought to show for the trip?
When Hawaii's senior congressman gets wound up, he turns CSPAN into a verbal MMA. And I can almost hang in with him myself, having managed to feed my mouth while running it hard since I dropped out of high school and became a deejay at the age of 17.
About that time, Honorable Mr. Abercrombie was freezing in his hometown, near Buffalo, NY, but keeping hot with the first rock'n'roll song to hit Top 40 radio, "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley & The Comets.
So, though we knew it not back then, the lawmaker and I had, and still do, share much in common. We both love Barack, loathe Bush and vilify victimless criminal crime sentences. We're a pair of hirsute, anti-war, hippie throwbacks, quite content with Old School pursuits like reading books, grooving to Hawaiian ki ho'alu guitar music, sucking on see moi and going nuts with nostalgia over anything about this island that predates our septuagenarian souls. But rattle our cage and it's another matter--and pulse rate--entirely. In a Tag Team Talk Tussle, I'd choose Neil as a partner right at the coin toss. If he's in town.
It's one thing to drop into D.C. by train along the "Eastern corridor." Or jet in from a time zone or two away. Each one way trip to or from his offices spans an ocean, a continent and even greater gap in culture, sensibilities, societal surges and, most of all, just about every climate condition known to your most finicky weather person. From white sand to driven snow, from shave ice (with syrup, in a cone) to roads so frozen they can spin you faster than a lobbyist on jet skees.
In D.C. they have the Redskins. In Waikiki we have the tan skins. Over there it's the Washington Monument as erect testimony to soaring egos and cerbral balls. Close by a high cliff on Molokai stands that ancient symbol of organic Viagra, the Phallic Rock of Namanhoa
Congressman Abercrombie's trusted corner man and isle media war vet, Randy Obata, provided me a list of the congressman's favorite local artists. When the dialog got a bit too rowdy, the songs float by like swans in a tsunami. Speaking of storms, the political storms. Neil swears this will be his Last Washington Waltz in. Maybe Randy will replace him in our nation's capital. In the White House. To listen to him talk, he'd just come home to his lovely wife Nancy and their home up in Manoa Valley. He'd love to get a day job as skipper of his "own" tug.
I've followed Neil's career since I came back home in 1976. He's the rare Mainlander who slid into the local politcal puddle but did not get sucked under. Or suckered into the more byzantine behavior of Beretania Street bureaucrats. Unlike the view from afar, this ain't no lazy tropical isle inhabited by coconut crackers, mai tai mixers and stoned surfers. Yeah, there once was a time, back in the day when a nut, drink or board could be quickly dealt with, without making a deal. Hawaii politics are tough. Not contact sport. It's more like cock fighting, pitting stuffed shirts threatening one another with vetoes, resolutions and contempt--of both the emotional and litigious types.
You don't push around someone like our man Abercrombie. His hobby is bench pressing his age. Plus 200 pounds. "It's a totally pointless pursuit," he says. And at 70 he can still do it. He can easily clean up any 270-pound jerk who gets in his way on the the House floor.
Neil's pushed so hard for constituents so hard that there's a tugboat named after him. It shoves steamships around Honolulu Harbor. Tell me your rep in Washington has one of those. For the past seven days the Man From Manoa has been pushing the candidacy of Waikiki-born and Oahu raised Barack Obama. Neal is honorary chairman of the presumptive Democratic nominee in "Barry's" home town state.
Neil spent this past week watching Barack's brood visit the average family's tourist spots. Sure, he put on shoes--Yech!--for a ritzy dinner at the Kahala Resort on Thursday. He made more friends, if that's possible, and added more kala to the budget required to combat outlandishly loathsome lies about him puked up by the opposition. (If Obama was "taught in a Muslim school," then what were those weekly Protestant chapel services we both attended, in separate decades, at "prestigious," pricey, private Punahou, founded by Christian missionary's in 1841?)
OK, so if Sen. Obama is a liberal, then Rep. Abercrombie is a self-combusting radical. Crazed and kooky? He chairs committees that serve our servicemen, prop up the poor and help patch up this eight-year farce that's almost taken America over the edge. The men and women serving at Marine Base Kaneohe, down the hill and across the bay, appreciate. He got them $40 million for badly needed new barracks and housing.
Hell, some right wing "watch dog" group rated Neil's voting record a fat zero. But he must be doing something right. Rep. Abercrombie was reelected in 2006 with 69% of votes cast for the United States House of Representatives in Hawaii's First District.
The dude can bench press me! Like, my age plus 200 pounds. I invite you to take a listen to the Neil Abercrombie interview now streaming on Whodaguy Hawaii. You'll hear a real person, ladies and gentlemen. Check out the photos on the home page. Same guy in a coat and tie the tangle of our nation's capitol, or in the aloha shirt he wore up here today in our hill country jungle. You might want to put down a few bucks on him as the next Governor of Hawaii while the odds are long for 2010.
Not that he's running for that office. In fact, not once during our visit did he mention that he's on the ballot as a candidate for the House in November. How cool is that, brah?
