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It was 50 years ago this fall that the Kennedy-Nixon debates ushered in a new era of presidential debates that continues through the present day.

Did Kennedy win because he looked tanned and fit on TV compared with the five o’clock-shadowed Nixon? Did Nixon score better among radio listeners? Scholars and pundits continue to debate the debate, and debate for most high offices has become de rigueur.

Listening — listening, not watching — to Neil Abercrombie and Duke Aiona go at each other for 90 minutes live from Maui Wednesday night on Hawaii Public Radio raised similar questions. But it wasn’t JFK vs. Tricky Dick.

Nope. Just Neil vs. Duke.

I listened to the debate on radio. Not that the gubernatorial debate couldn’t be viewed — it could, and in many places: through community television on Oahu, Kauai, Maui and the Big Island, and via video stream at and Oceanic channel 865.

But it was also available on HPR’s four radio stations — KHPR (88.1 FM), KKUA (90.7 FM) and KANO (91.1 FM). Sponsored by the Maui Economic Development Board, it was very much the first live, statewide “broadcast” debate between Abercrombie and Aiona.

Unless you were living “off the grid” from Kau to Kauai, most folks had the chance to listen closely to the man who would be king for the next four years.

Here’s what I heard.

About Voice

First, a debate on the radio can be as boring as a debate on TV. One longed for the rowdiness of the Hawaii News Now debate in August between Abercrombie and Mufi Hannemann, if only to get a little stimulation.

(The debate was moderated by HPR News Director Kayla Rosenfeld before an invited studio audience at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center’s McCoy Theater.)

For the first 45 minutes or so, the Maui debate was uninterrupted by excitement. Aiona has a smooth set of pipes, perfect for reading bedtime stories but not necessarily for keeping listeners glued to the airwaves.

(Aiona also has an excitable voice that seems to draw on his experience as a coach. When he employs this voice, ears perk up. Regrettably, he used it very little Wednesday night.)

Sometimes Aiona’s smoothness conveys confidence — “Trust me, I’ll run the state just fine.” But sometimes it suggests glibness.

Abercrombie, by contrast, has multiple voices — gravelly, exasperated, incredulous, quivery, breathy, avuncular, excitable — and he sometimes uses them all in the same sentence, often reaching climax in the last few words.

If Abercrombie’s responses had been tracked digitally, the line graph would have resembled the Koolau range.

If voice translates into action, there may be an unevenness in governance. The highs will be exhilarating, but the lows will be … gravelly, exasperated, incredulous, quivery.

Both candidates stumbled over words, as do we all — especially Abercrombie. “Lahainaluna” came out as “La-hi-hi-hi-hi — uh — La-hi-hi-ai-na LOO-nah.”

This happens a lot to the former congressman. But then, he is an excitable man.

He also has a large vocabulary — “ancilliary,” for example — and an affinity for literature that he can use to great effect in alliterative phrases like “Furlough Fridays foisted upon us.”

Aiona tends to rely on familiar uses of language like “the bottom line is,” “I wish I had a silver bullet” and “our youth are the leaders of tomorrow.” He also uses odd language from time to time, as when talking about wind energy: “We’ve got to put steel in the ground, get those windmills moving.”

About Format

The debate also suffered from questions that seemed put together by committee — from HPR, from the Maui board, from audience members — rather than a cohesive set.

Questions about balancing, say, the preservation of culture with “human needs” — food? water? jobs? — lacked edge and served as wobbly softballs to the candidates.

Sometimes they took a swing, running with questions on STEM curriculum for the schools, the Land Use Commission and the hotel tax. Sometimes they just mumbled.

So non-infalmmatory were some of those answers that the candidates often declined the opportunity to rebut their opponent for one minute. Imagine — a politician passing on a chance to speak into a live microphone!

The lack of rebuttal may have led to moderator Rosenfeld (who sounded nervous) running out of questions. Near the end of the 90 minutes she asked the candidates — twice — if they wanted to “expound” on questions raised earlier in the night.

(Full disclosure: I was a political reporter at HPR from 2004 to 2007 and Rosenfeld was my immediate superior. She is professional, and she is my friend.)

The worst moment of the evening — or the best, if one was desperate for an adrenaline rush — was when Aiona said he did not understand a question from Rosenfeld about having neighbor island representatives in a governor’s cabinet.

Abercrombie then interrupted to say he didn’t get the question either. The question was rephrased and answers given, but the moderator had lost control of the debate.

About Message

Aiona’s main message was fiscal responsibility and having a governor that can “bring everyone together” with “political balance” in government — the central themes of his campaign.

Abercrombie’s main message was that government can actually help solve problems — especially with his oft-cited “federal dollars” and Washington connections.

Both scored some nice points on the other. Abercrombie, for one, defended school teachers after Aiona said their unions needed to “put pressure” on teachers when it comes to achievment and retention.

“The teachers themselves feel the most pressed because they want to do what they want to do, which is teach,” said Abercrombie.

Aiona neatly rebutted Abercrombie’s attack on Aiona’s desire for an audit of the Department of Education. The Democrat questioned why Aiona was suggesting the idea only now after nearly eight years in office, but Aiona countered that Democratic administrations had pushed for audits too but were rebuffed by the BOE and the Legislature.

Abercrombie made the most local plugs, naming names and showing his deep reach into Maui’s community. He repeatedly pointed out his time chairing congressional committees, which only reminded audiences that Aiona does not have a long record in office.

But Aiona was at his strongest drawing on his experience as a judge to responded to a question on crystal meth addiction.

Who won?

The Aiona-Finnegan campaign team released seven “fact checks” via e-mail during the course of the debate to set the record straight on what they perceived were errors on the part of Abercrombie.

Aiona’s communications director, Travis Taylor, sent out an e-mail in the last minute of the debate that said, “Duke Aiona was solid, focused and specific on the issues facing our working families and small businesses…Our opponent continues to speak in platitudes, including an over-reliance on federal funding as the solution to Hawaii’s economic issues.”

I didn’t see any e-mails from the Abercrombie-Schatz camp, so I don’t know how they spun the debate. Nothing on their website either a half hour later, either.

I do, however, have this enlightening Skype exchange between a 20-something colleague who watched the debate on TV and a 50-something colleague who listened on the radio:

20-something: “abercrombie looks dead.”

50-something: “that’s funny cause on the radio he sounds much livelier than duke”

40-something guy (me): “YES”

20-something: “wow… he looks terrible… tired.”

Only the 50-something guy was alive in 1960.

Unlike the debate between JFK and Nixon, scholars and pundits won’t be taking about NA vs. DA 50 years from now.