Cayetano’s negativity taints heated race for U.S. Senate

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano is using the attention he’s getting as a victim of negative campaigning by Pacific Resource Partnership to fuel his own negative campaign against U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz.

Cayetano, who backs U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa against Schatz, demanded that Schatz fire Andy Winer as his chief of staff because Winer advised PRP in its campaign against him for mayor.

He never complained when Winer was a hired gun for candidates he favored, such as Duke Bainum against Mufi Hannemann for mayor, former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka and U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono.

More recently, Cayetano hijacked a Facebook discussion to mount a John McCain-like attack on President Barack Obama’s Syria policy and declared, "Let’s call a spade a spade." Seriously?

He segued from castigating Obama into an extended attack on Schatz for supporting the president’s policy, when in fact Schatz and Hanabusa were similarly skeptical of U.S. military involvement in Syria.

Cayetano says he supports Hanabusa because of their mutual respect from working together, but there was little apparent respect in their battles when her start in the state Senate overlapped his final years as governor.

Hanabusa led a Senate move to oust Cayetano’s attorney general, Margery Bronster, in the middle of Bronster’s investigation of corrupt Bishop Estate trustees.

Trustee Henry Peters was a power in Hanabusa’s Waianae district, and she was in contact with trustee Richard "Dickie" Wong, a former Senate president, for advice on how to attain that position herself.

Senators also ousted Cayetano’s budget director, Earl Anzai, and Cayetano responded by appointing Anzai attorney general, leaving Hanabusa to publicly wonder whether Cayetano was thumbing his nose at her or giving her the finger. Lots of mutual respect there.

Then there was Hana­busa’s push in the Legislature to pass a $75 million tax credit for an aquarium proposed by Ko Olina developer Jeff Stone, who had sold Hanabusa her Ko Olina condo and rented her a spacious Fort Street Mall law office.

When Cayetano vetoed the tax credit, saying it served no public purpose, she threw a fit and unsuccessfully sued him. More mutual respect.

Hanabusa later got Gov. Linda Lingle to approve the tax credit, but no aquarium was built.

Cayetano’s support for Hanabusa seems less about respect for work they did than his personal dislike for Schatz.

When I once asked him the reason for it, he answered by spreading a rumor about Schatz’s alleged snub of a top local Democrat, which upon examination turned out to be greatly exaggerated.

While Cayetano has a fair beef about PRP’s mayoral attacks against him, in the Senate contest both Hanabusa and Schatz have run relatively clean campaigns so far.

Most of the negative campaigning in this race has been by Ben Cayetano.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.