Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s performance during a stormy first year in office has revived doubts about his executive ability and eroded the political capital he earned with a landslide election victory.

The Democrat has not met expectations — according to the private assessment of many of his political allies — and a series of administrative and public-policy misfires have overshadowed his early achievements.

Advisers who have worked closely with him say his biggest assets are his fearlessness and capacity for the unconventional, which can make even his friends uncomfortable but might enable him to recover and become a more effective leader through the next three years of his term.

"My whole career has been built on people forgiving me, if you will," Abercrombie said in an interview in his fifth-floor office at the state Capitol. "In other words, they don’t necessarily agree with me on particular issues, but they believe I have been honest with them, that I have been straightforward with them, and that if I decided to do something, I’ll stick with it and I won’t run away."

Abercrombie is invigorated by a record $1.3 billion bond sale that will help pay for state construction projects, refinance a portion of the state’s debt to lower debt-service costs, and provide cash that could be used to replenish the state’s hurricane relief and rainy day funds, which the governor drained to survive the last fiscal year.

Credit-rating agencies have declared the state’s financial management sound, validation the governor thinks will turn public perception in his favor. The former congressman rejected second-guessing about his executive ability and accused former Gov. Linda Lingle of leaving the state in a "fiscal ditch."

"And let me tell you, we could have used a little bit more legislative experience then if executive experience is the kind of thing that I ended up with last December," he said. "Then I’ll take the experience I had any time."

Many close to Abercrombie think the governor is back on course after falling to his lowest point in October, when a public opinion poll put his job approval rating at 30 percent and four top advisers resigned amid tensions in his inner circle.

A $500 million mixed-use development project on state-owned land in Kakaako — with the potential for the tallest high-rise in Hawaii — could be a catalyst for Abercrombie’s vision of guiding growth toward Honolulu’s urban core.

A possible $200 million settlement with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in a dispute over former crown lands could be a breakthrough after years of talks. The settlement, which requires legislative approval, includes waterfront property in Kakaako that could be redeveloped.

A smoothly executed Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference gave Abercrombie and Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz the opportunity to form stronger ties and promote tourism and alternative energy within the region.

Abercrombie’s earlier missteps drowned out the potential seeds of his "A New Day in Hawaii" agenda: new coordinators for the homeless, health care and early childhood education and a chief information officer to revamp the state’s outdated technology system.

William Kaneko, Abercrombie’s campaign manager, said Abercrombie had the challenge of making the transition from congressman to governor while facing a budget deficit and a weak economy.

"Gov. Abercrombie was faced with making difficult decisions, some of which went against his political base: unions, senior citizens, and human services groups, in particular," Kaneko said in an email. "Those decisions, albeit unpopular, were essential measures to ensure that state government functioned properly, and had the means to remain fiscally solvent."

But many of Abercrombie’s political allies, in private conversations, say they thought he would do better.

His strengths, people who have worked closely with him say, are a focus on the big picture, his fearlessness and an unconventional style. But he is often unable to edit himself and thinks out loud in the wrong settings, can be easily distracted and disengaged as a manager. He has reverted to being a poor listener after embracing the talent during the campaign, they say.

His weaknesses contributed to the mishaps of his first year. He called state money for the Pro Bowl "stupid" during a news conference on early childhood education and described the AARP as "essentially a front for insurance companies" after elderly activists opposed his pension tax.

The governor and his staff failed to quickly explain the policy rationale after asking for courtesy resignations from Lingle appointees to key state boards and commissions. He and his staff did not publicly disclose a civil-defense emergency for abandoned World War II-era munitions for more than two months.

Despite Abercrombie’s legislative experience, he had a rocky first session during which lawmakers rejected most of his tax and revenue-generating ideas and significantly reduced his spending requests. A dissident and an outsider when he was a lawmaker, he had little history with the endgame bargaining that goes on between legislative leaders and chief executives.

"That’s not in his DNA," said state Rep. Roy Takumi (D, Pearl City-Pacific Palisades). "It’s a very different ballgame being the governor relative to being in the Congress or one of 25 state senators. You don’t have to stand up on your soap box. People come to you."

Abercrombie’s comments blaming Lingle alone for a "fiscal nightmare," Republicans and some Democrats say, display a naivete about the staggering deficits the Republican governor and lawmakers had to close during the recession.

"I don’t think he had any idea what poor position Hawaii was in financially," said state Rep. Barbara Marumoto (R, Kalani Valley-Diamond Head).

While the budget deficit for last fiscal year may have been larger than Abercrombie anticipated, his budget analysts and lawmakers agree that the real alarm occurred after deficit projections surged from about $70 million last December to about $200 million in March because of revised state revenue estimates.

Abercrombie won lawmaker approval to drain the hurricane relief fund and the rainy day fund to help get through the fiscal year, refusing to repeat Lingle’s short-term strategy of delaying income tax refunds and Medicaid payments to health insurers.

Abercrombie’s two significant cost-containment measures to close the projected $1.2 billion deficit in the following two-year budget cycle — 5 percent in labor savings from public-sector unions and eligibility limits and benefit reductions in Quest, the state’s health insurance program for the poor — were nearly identical to what Lingle had recommended.

The governor said he does not expect gratitude even if his "New Day" agenda eventually succeeds in improving the state.

"There’s only one thing worse in politics than being wrong, and that’s being right, because people will forgive you for being wrong, but they’ll almost never forgive you for being right because it means things got done, and things had to happen that nobody wanted and nobody liked," he said. "Especially if they knew that’s what had to be done, and they were upset by it, because they blame you for upsetting them."