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As the polls closed on November 8, 1988, a beaming Donald Yamada made his way through the crowd at Mayor Dante Carpenter's reelection headquarters in Hilo. Yamada -- Carpenter's campaign co-chairman and the president of trucking and construction company Yamada Enterprises -- had good reason to smile. His candidate was a heavy favorite to win a second term as mayor of the County of Hawaii, and the crowd of about 200 supporters sensed victory as well. Meanwhile, across town, a local banker opted to watch the election results in the quiet seclusion of his living room. The question wasn't whether Carpenter would win, of course, but by just how wide a margin.
When the first printout flashed across his TV screen -- and showed Republican candidate Bernard Akana leading Carpenter -- the banker laughed, turned to his wife and remarked at the obvious mistake. At Carpenter's campaign headquarters, Yamada expressed a bit more concern. "Holy (expletive)!" he exclaimed, a statement which reverberated above the silence of the now hushed crowd. By the second printout, the reality had hit home. Recalls the banker, "It dawned on me that Bernard Akana was going to be our next mayor and I started to consider the consequences of that. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well that night." The next morning, he fielded dozens of calls from panicked businesspeople from all sectors of industry, wanting to confirm what had happened, searching for some insight as to why the impossible had occurred. Nobody wanted to broach the more compelling topic as to whether the upset victory would impede the economic momentum of the Big Island.
One year later, as Bernard Akana completes his first 12 months in office, the county's business leaders are heaving a collective sigh of relief. No major catastrophes have befallen the only island in the state to be headed by a 70-year-old political novice, whose only previous brush with "power" was as an engineering design planner with the Hawaii Electric Light Co. The Big Island's economy is still bold and bright and the new mayor --whom one of his own staff describes as a "babe in the woods" -- is becoming more comfortable with his annointment as titular head of the County of Hawaii.
Still,...