My money for Abercrombie’s choice(*) is Tulsi Gabbard, the new, fresh-faced Congresswoman for Hawaii’s 2d CD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
The state’s other congresscritter is another option, but she is 61 and could not serve for a bijillion years like Inouye did and like Akaka is doing. Those long, long tenures are great for bringing home the bacon, and Abercrombie is all about government largesse.
(*—I don’t know the state’s law and thus don’t know how vacancies in the state’s US Senate seats are filled.)
Abrecrombie might want to run himself, in which case he’d appoint a placeholder.
If Tulsi Gabbard is appointed to the Senate, she will be *by far* the best-looking U.S. Senator ever. She also might be less liberal than any of the other candidates (Gabbard served in the military, and her father was a Republican state senator who switched to the Dems because he was irrelevant as one of only two Republicans in the body).
Whoever is appointed would have to defend the seat in a special election held in November 2014, when the governorship will also be up (but with no presidential election, much less one with “native son” Obama on the ballot). More interesting, in my mind, than which Democrat Abercrombie will appoint (or whether his appointee will survive the Dem primary) is whether former Congressman Charles Djou will run for the Senate or governorship. Former Gov. Linda Lingle might also make a run for one of those two offices.