Ige and Green, The Odd Couple

Lt. Gov. Josh Green knew it irritated people when he sign waved for his 2018 campaign in hospital scrubs.

And he admits he’s not following typical government protocol when he jumps ahead of the state Department of Health to announce new and sometimes alarming COVID-19 case numbers on social media, hours ahead of the official data release.

But Green, 51, doesn’t care. He insists that as a Hawaii island emergency room physician, his first goal is to solve problems while alerting the public about important health information.

Green also has contradicted his boss, Gov. David Ige, and has apologized twice to Ige “for getting ahead of my skis.”

“David Ige and I are not a natural couple,” Green told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “While I respect his engineering thinking, I’m a shoot-from-the-hip physician and he provides the cautious checks and balances.

“Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Our governor is very analytical and that is a strength. But he’s not a dynamic communicator and that leads a lot of people to get frustrated. Sometimes I’m way out ahead of a story and that’s not typical of government communications. Does he always love having me as lieutenant governor? You’d have to ask him.”