Not bad, David Ige.

The man is never going to have the vocal resonance of Albus Dumbledore or the oratory brilliance to make his speeches go viral like Billy Kenoi. That may be the only time those two names have ever appeared in the same sentence, but stranger still is an Ige speech that ended up being kind of good.

Not that any of the legislators were chee-hooing for him. Tough crowd. But in terms of content, clarity and a measure of conviction, Ige did his thing. It wasn’t a bring-down-the-house thing, but for him it was almost inspired.

Now he has to actually do what he says he’s gonna do, but that’s always the knock on these speeches. Just for now, maybe we can let him have a moment to bask in the victory of a speech that wasn’t terrible by a public speaker who notoriously is.

When he started by taking a sip of water and a deep breath before uttering his first words, it was like, “Aw, man, he’s already nervous. This is gonna be painful.”

But then he talked about the sad end of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. and the generations of families that felt proud and fortunate to work in Hawaii’s sugar industry, and in doing so managed to find just the right tone:

“We live in a time of extraordinary change, where the past seems to have little relevance to what is happening today, let alone tomorrow,” Ige said. “Sugar is gone, as are many other aspects of the Hawaii we once knew. In their place, however, there is an exciting new world beckoning us.”

While most of the legislators feigned indifference, Ige plowed on with some bold ideas. The middle of the speech got pretty wonky and dry, but those arid plains of bureaucracy are where Ige most understands the terrain. He talked about expenditure control policies, fiscal initiatives and debt service, and everyone had to fight the urge to check email. There were times when he paused to wait for applause that was slow to come or didn’t happen. But he got all fired up talking about about the future of Kalihi. Fired up for David Ige isn’t five-alarm, but when he said, “We have an immediate opportunity to get it right in Kalihi,” it sounded like a battle cry.

Ige is really a master at the conference table. He can discuss programs and departments in depth without notes. He can cite all sorts of numbers, facts and procedures by heart when he’s just talking.

But public speaking is never going to be his superpower. His shoulders started to climb up to his ears near the end, he pronounced “world” like “wrold” and words like “pluralism” tumbled around his mouth like shoes in a dryer.

Still, he managed to end on a strong note that was impressively un-cliche:

“The transcendent call from our island state to the surrounding world is that when we demean others we betray ourselves. There is a finer, better way. Pledge to it, make it real every day.”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.