Lingle’s Showman
With a background in sports marketing, Lenny Klompus earns raves for packaging Governor Lingle’s message so well
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Gov. Linda Lingle first worked with Lenny Klompus when she
was mayor of Maui and he brought the Hula Bowl to the
Valley Isle
As Sky Masterson in the Army Community Theatre’s recent production of Guys and Dolls, Lenny Klompus received mixed reviews.
But in his role as Gov. Linda Lingle’s senior adviser in charge communications, Klompus has been a smash hit.
“He’s a marketing genius,” says Mayor Mufi Hannemann. “He brings a flair to the office. He dresses it up. There’s never a dull moment, and you see Lenny’s touch in all of it.”
“Lenny’s a showman,” says Marcia Klompus, his wife of 22 years. “A P.T. Barnum.”
For the first 25 years of his professional career, the shows Klompus put on involved balls, bats, hockey pucks, goal posts, backboards and baskets. As president of Metro Sports, he and wife Marcia sold radio and television rights to professional sports franchises from coast-to-coast.
“Lenny,” says Marcia, “was ESPN before there was ESPN.”
By 2002, Klompus was on Maui running the Hula Bowl, a Christmas Day post-season football game for all-star seniors. In the gubernatorial election that fall, Klompus threw in his lot with Lingle.
Lingle had been sold on Klompus from the day he brought the Hula Bowl to Maui in 1997. Three years into her first administration, she still is.
“Lenny sees possibilities where others say it can’t be done,” says Lingle. “He’s not knowledgeable in state government, and that’s an advantage. He’s not limited in his thinking. He has the ability to see ahead.
“Lenny brings tremendous enthusiasm to his job. He’s very hard-working; he lives his job. He doesn’t like to leave the office until everything’s done.”
Not everyone is as fulsome in their praise of Klompus’s role in Lingle’s administration, particularly among Democrats.
Congressman Neil Abercrombie is typical; he’s called the Lingle administration “government by photo op.”
The chair of Hawaii’s Democrats, Brickwood Galeturia, offers back-handed praise. “Lenny is an incredible marketer, a real professional. He controls the message and packages the product,” says Galuteria. “The spin is there and the rhythm. If Gov. Lingle were cereal, all the kids would be eating it.”
Those of voting age seem to be buying the Lingle brand as well - by the shopping cart full: so much so that 11 months before the 2006 general election only one Democrat, former State Sen. Randy Iwase, has indicated an interest in running against her.
Lingle, however, bridles at the suggestion that photo opportunities are what her administration is all about.
“Those criticisms simply show how hugely successful we’ve been,” she says. “Those critics resort to personal attacks rather than deal with the issues. We’ve turned the economy around, achieved the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, lowered fees for doing business in the state, produced more housing for people. The public sees that.”
Their vision is certainly helped by Lenny Klompus. Seventy-seven-year-old Francis Lum has worked as the state’s protocol officer for every governor since John A. Burns. “Lenny plans events that are compatible with Gov. Lingle’s position on the issues,” says Lum. “He doesn’t send her out on any old thing. He doesn’t waste her time.
“And wherever she goes to speak, he sees to it that everything’s prepared - that the press is there, the right guests, her speech. He’s a great planner. A great organizer.”
Says Jen Rulon, one of the eight members of Klompus’s staff: “He sets the stage, plans the backdrop. He finds the personal story to make the point. He’s theatrical.
“Lenny gets excited about planning media events. I remember last summer during the Nanakuli brush fires, he arranged for a helicopter to get the governor from the airport out to the Leeward Coast. She was in Hilo, so he had to get her back - all in time for the 5 o’clock news.”
“It’s all about leadership,” says Klompus. “And I’ve known a lot of great leaders, like UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and North Carolina’s Dean Smith. But I’ve never seen a better leader than Linda Lingle.
“You can’t package anything that has no substance, and the governor is all substance. It’s our job to explain it.”
But it’s no longer games that Klompus is packaging, and he admits that prior to his involvement with Lingle, he knew little about state government: “I couldn’t understand what was going on in this big square building.” Now he takes part in policy discussions with the governor, departmental staff, and Lingle’s senior policy adviser, Linda Smith. “I have to understand the issues because it’s my job to communicate them,” says Klompus.
It’s also Klompus’s job to communicate Hawaii nationally and internationally. During Lingle’s first administration he’s made frequent trips to Washington with the governor to lobby for the Akaka bill. He’s also traveled with her to China, Korea, Israel and - most recently - to the Philippines.
Klompus enjoys being involved with issues. “I love it that everything’s not in a neat little box,” he says. “Gov. Lingle encourages everbody’s input.”
Klompus defends his elaborate staging of gubernatorial events with the backdrops on which a key phrase from the governor’s speech is repeated: “Let’s face it, we live in a fast food world. The whole story on the 5 o’clock news may get only 45 seconds. With the backdrops we’re able to communicate the essence of her message while the governor’s explaining it. You have to
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