Since 2011, during his first term on the Honolulu City Council, Ernie Martin has been telling himself and those who asked, “Someday I’m going to run for mayor.”

Reporters asking for details have been left with nothing specific.

If Martin isn’t running out of answers, he is running out of time.

Last week, Martin had a $50-a-person fundraiser at the Bishop Museum that, according to reports, had a good but not a back-them-out-to-Bernice-Street crowd of about 250.

Making an appearance at the fundraiser, however, was Martin’s campaign banner, reading simply: “Ernie Martin Mayor.”

Martin is in his second and last consecutive term on the Council, which ends in January 2019. That means he can run for mayor next year with a base as a sitting Councilman, or he can run in 2020, with little chance of success because he would have been out of office for two years.

The “Ernie Martin Mayor” banner first popped up last year when Martin posed with it as he was thanking voters in his district for his reelection.

Martin continues to say that some day he would like to be mayor, and reportedly has added that someone would have to give him a compelling reason why not to run against Mayor Kirk Caldwell next year.

A 2016 Martin for Mayor campaign still looks iffy.

First there is Martin’s name recognition. City Council chairs are big cheeses in a very small mouse trap. Being Council chair has been a launching pad to precisely nothing. Honolulu Hale politicians who went from Council chair to not being elected mayor in the next term include Marilyn Bornhorst, Arnold Morgado and Gary Gill, to Mufi Hannemann’s first campaign for mayor.

The way to overcome a lack of name recognition is to buy it with TV commercials, which cost money.

Already Caldwell has held 26 fundraisers, including one last week, with ticket prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,000. Martin has had three. Caldwell has $1.5 million in the bank and Martin has $428,000.

If you are not able to buy TV time, you need a compelling, newsworthy or passably interesting pitch to get headlines.

City Council squeaky wheels get lots of press coverage, but Council chairs have to play the insider game and their coverage amounts to items such as the criticism Martin got for spearheading the drive to give former lobbyist and Martin assistant Kimberly Ribellia the $129,000-year deputy city clerk position.

Former city clerk Bernice Wong criticized how Ribellia, who was also an assistant to former Council chairman and now state Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, was picked. Even Caldwell jumped on the action, saying it was done without public knowledge. Martin said the decision was made by the entire Council and not just by him.

As for the separating issues, rail is the big one and both Martin and Caldwell are supporters, although Martin has yet to schedule the Council vote to approve the needed general excise tax extension to pay for the over-budget rail system.

The matter is complicated because Pacific Resource Partnership, a consortium of construction contractors, and the Hawaii Carpenters Union put up much of the money needed to defeat former Gov. Ben Cayetano’s attempt to stop rail by beating Caldwell in 2012.

PRP will back only rail supporters, but its executive director is John White, who ran against Martin in the 2010 Council race, losing by just 47 votes. So love rail or just mildly like it, Martin is not likely to be PRP’s poster boy next year.

If Martin is going to move from Council to mayor’s office, he will first have to start forcefully saying he wants the job now and then dramatically up his game in order to make his wish a reality.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.