Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Wednesday described the legalization of same-sex marriage as his proudest accomplishment as governor and said he wished he had done more to convince the public of the need for shared sacrifice near the end of the recession.

In an interview at his office at the state Capitol, Abercrombie, who suffered a historic primary loss to former state Sen. David Ige in August, said he hoped the public would think of him as "someone whose integrity was intact, always intact. And that whatever I did, and however I did it, and whatever the consequences — politically or otherwise — that it was always for Hawaii.

"And always for those who had to struggle, those who needed a voice, those who felt that perhaps if I was the only one that would speak for them, that they could count on it."

The 76-year-old Democrat is still absorbing his stunning defeat to Ige, the first time in state history that a governor lost re-election in a primary. He is also the first governor not to win a second term since William Quinn, a Republican, in 1962.

Abercrombie said he thinks events will determine his legacy. The governor said the state’s economic turnaround since the recession, a record budget surplus, and lower unemployment will show "that we were on the right track, that we did the right things."

"But in order to do that, some very, very hard choices had to be faced and some tough decisions had to be made, which didn’t please a lot of people. And after five decades in electoral politics, I wasn’t blind to what the consequences of some of those decisions would be. I hoped that I could overcome them."

Asked what he would have done differently, Abercrombie said, "I couldn’t do anything other than what I did. If I had it to do over, I would have worked harder at trying to get across the idea that we’re all in this together."

While the governor has been criticized for his rhetorical excesses, he said he wished he had been "more adamant, rather than less adamant, about the necessity of doing this."

Asked what he considered his proudest accomplishment, the governor cited the legalization of same-sex marriage.

"If there is any place on Earth, historically, that has been home to the idea that we are all brothers and sisters and should be no matter where we came from, who we are, what we look like, etc. — no matter what our backgrounds — it’s Hawaii," he said. "Through the medium of the idea of aloha."

In an unguarded moment in late August with national and foreign correspondents and editors, Abercrombie blamed his loss on his decision last year to call a special session of the Legislature to approve same-sex marriage.

The governor acknowledged in the interview Wednesday that a combination of factors — and no one issue alone — contributed to his loss. He referred to his unsuccessful proposals for a pension tax, the elimination of Medicare Part B premium reimbursements for retired public workers, and difficult labor negotiations with some public-sector unions as other examples.

"Every decision I made I knew there would be controversy and there would be difficulties to overcome politically," he said. "But every single one of them I made I felt I had to make, because I had taken an oath, obviously, to not just uphold the Constitution, but to act on behalf of the interest of the people of Hawaii.

"Whether it benefited me at the moment or not. Whether or not it afforded people who had a political agenda an opportunity to mount an attack — politically or otherwise — I knew that. I hoped — I felt — I could overcome it. I felt I should overcome it."

Abercrombie said he "didn’t run for governor in order to run for a second term," adding, "I would have liked to have had a second term. I regret that I’m not going to have a second term to carry through on a lot of the things that we got started. But I’m not sorry about any decision that I made because I felt I had to do it and live with myself.

"I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t make the decisions that I made, whether it was politically advantageous to me or not."

John Radcliffe, a prominent lobbyist and Abercrombie confidant, said the governor should be recognized for addressing the unfunded liabilities in the public-worker health care and retirement funds, responding to the state’s housing shortage, and conserving land at Turtle Bay Resort.

He described the governor as a "fiscal realist," adding, "I think, as time goes by, he’ll be remembered a lot better than he is right now."

Radcliffe said Hawaii has a tendency to savage governors as they leave office. He said former Govs. George Ariyoshi, John Waihee, Ben Cayetano and Linda Lingle all had vocal critics at the end of their terms.

"I can assure you that down the road David will have the same problem," Radcliffe predicted for Ige. "It’s the nature of things in Hawaii. We like to beat the crap out of governors. That’s one of our MOs."

Abercrombie’s unwelcome distinction, however, is falling in the primary.

"He didn’t get a second term because of his propensity to be combative," Radcliffe said. "Had he been more duplicitous, had he been more charming, I think he would have got a second term, regardless of what he did or not."

Radcliffe pointed to Abercrombie’s "YouTube moments" — his verbal faux pas, particularly during his first year in office — as part of his downfall.

"I think lots of people got ticked off and his natural allies turned on him," he said. "So that happens. It was sad. But it happened."

Blake Oshiro, Abercrombie’s deputy chief of staff, contends the governor will be remembered for "many bold moves and decisions with regards to civil rights, environmental and land protection, and trying to move the ball forward on education, specifically early ed."

Others who have worked closely with Abercrombie, speaking privately, said the resignations of his younger advisers during his first year foreshadowed the eventual split with labor, progressive and environmental allies later in his four-year term. The younger advisers — including Amy Asselbaye, his chief of staff and longtime congressional aide, and Andrew Aoki, his deputy chief of staff — had wrestled with the governor’s older, more politically connected circle over policy and messaging.

The impression — fair or not — that Abercrombie was too cozy with the lobbyists and developers who bankrolled his campaigns helped erode his decades-old reputation as a fearless liberal who challenged powerful interests.

But these sources say Abercrombie might still have been able to recover from his early mistakes and salvage a second term if his advisers had strategically attacked the root of the problem.

"They thought that the problem was the message," one source who worked with the governor said. "The problem wasn’t the message. The problem was the messenger.

"Neil had lost all credibility. So it didn’t matter what he said. It didn’t matter how logical it was."

The source said Abercrombie should have come out a year before the election and offered some sort of apology to the allies he had alienated. Had the governor been able to repair some of these relationships, he might have received more credit among Democrats for policy victories on marriage equality, the minimum wage and Turtle Bay.

"He didn’t have people who would back him up anymore," the source said. "So he couldn’t get that credit."

Abercrombie, who has had a long relationship with Hawaii voters from elections to the state House, the state Senate, the Honolulu City Council and Congress, said people have treated him well since the primary. Several, he said, have mentioned the governor’s positive tone toward Ige on primary election night.

The governor joked that he cannot find anybody who did not vote for him.

"My mom used to say, ‘You think people who don’t like you are going to come up and tell you they don’t?’ I said, ‘Yeah, they do.’"

Abercrombie, who spent $5.5 million in the primary to Ige’s $585,700, called money the "cancer in the bowels of democracy right now." He said he would have preferred not to have had to raise so much money, which opened him up to claims by Ige that he was beholden to special interests.

Abercrombie said he and Kalbert Young, the state budget director, have prepared a solid fiscal foundation for Ige’s two-year state budget draft, which is due at the Legislature in late December.

"If that’s rejected, because I put it forward, I think that would be very unfortunate," he said.

Abercrombie has set up a firm, Pacific Strategies, to potentially do consulting work on policy issues locally and in Washington, D.C. His political life, he said, would center on supporting President Barack Obama during the final two years of the Hawaii-born president’s term and the state’s fledgling congressional delegation.

Abercrombie had said previously that the governorship would be the last political office he would seek. But on Wednesday he chose not to completely rule out another campaign, teasing: "Who knows? Maybe one day somebody will say, ‘You know, you really ought to be on the neighborhood board.’"