The Pacific Resource Partnership, a group highly critical of anti-rail mayoral candidate Ben Cayetano during the primary election, is reassessing its strategy for the general election campaign and has not yet decided whether it will continue with negative ads against the former governor, the group’s executive director said Wednesday.
John White said PRP considers the ads were effective and accomplished the goal of extending the campaign into the general election, but he is unsure whether they will continue.
“We just had the election, so we have to kind of look at, between now and election day, what are issues that voters care about that we have an opportunity to lend a voice to and talk about?” White said in an interview. “What and how we do it, we haven’t defined yet.”
Cayetano, who came out of retirement and ran as the only anti-rail candidate, earned 45 percent of the vote in the primary. Former city Managing Director Kirk Caldwell garnered 29 percent, and Mayor Peter Carlisle was third with 25 percent.
Cayetano needed at least 50 percent to win the contest outright. Instead he will face Caldwell in the general election.
After the primary, Cayetano had said the race would not have been close but for the $1 million spent by PRP against him.
PRP, an advocacy group for contractors and unionized carpenters and construction workers, was behind a campaign called “Read Ben’s Record,” which raised the issue of more than $500,000 in illegal campaign donations made to Cayetano during his last run for governor.
The state Campaign Spending Commission cleared Cayetano of any wrongdoing, and Cayetano accused PRP of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.
Cayetano said he plans to hold all parties accountable.
“My lawyers believe that John White, PRP and the Carpenters Union crossed the line when they spent more than $1 million to attack me with falsehoods and distortions about my record,” Cayetano said Wednesday. “They were well aware of the truth, and yet they went ahead. They hurt my family and damaged my reputation.
“Win or lose, once the election is over, I will take legal action to hold John White, the PRP trustees, its members and the Carpenters Union accountable for the dirty campaign they launched against me,” he added. “If they are not held accountable for their actions in this election, one can only guess what they will do to political candidates who do not do their bidding in future elections.”
White said PRP would continue to engage voters and talk about the records of both candidates leading up to the general election.
“We’ll kind of assess where we go from here and continue to give voters an opportunity to have an informed choice,” he said, adding that he believed the campaign was effective.
“I think what we did in the primary election was to talk about the parts of Ben Cayetano’s record that he may not have wanted voters to be reminded of but we felt was important, and at the end of the day, all we can do is present our case and the voters have to make a decision for themselves.”
