Bob Jones’ MidWeek column this week unfortunately demonstrates just how effectively misleading the negative campaign waged by the Pacific Resource Partnership against former governor and mayoral candidate, Ben Cayetano, actually was (“Further Proof Scummy Politics Works“).
Bob is no slouch as a reporter and a political observer, but he made a big mistake, although an understandable one, in his column.
He wrote:
If you live in a cave and don’t know, the pro-train PRP tainted Cayetano as “corrupt” because his campaign (like many others of the time) accepted half-a-million dollars in unqualified contributions in an earlier governor’s race and later transferred them to Cayetano’s mayoral war chest.
PRP’s sleight-of-tongue spinning managed to even leave Jones’ off course.
The “he took the money and later moved it over to his mayoral campaign” claim is something PRP implied but never said directly because it wasn’t true.
What PRP said was that Cayetano accepted illegal contributions and didn’t pay the amount received back to the state as required by the Campaign Spending Commission.
PRP then took a big leap beyond the plain facts by suggesting Cayetano was wrong–“corrupt” was the word they used–because, they said, he had kept the money, and then used a “loophole” to avoid paying it back.
Several things bothered me about the PRP position. Cayetano’s re-election campaign in 1998 received contributions later determined to have been illegal, for one reason or another. Some were in excess of the legal contribution limit, others were funneled through third-parties to conceal the identities of the original donors. There was never any determination that the campaign solicited illegal funds or knowingly accepted them.
When a subsequent investigation uncovered the illegal contributions, the re-election campaign was already long over. All funds remaining in the campaign account were returned to the state, as directed. With no money left and no campaign left, the campaign committee from the governor’s race was disbanded, and the bank account closed. That was, I believe, in 2002.
Some 14 years after that 1998 campaign, and ten years after the old campaign committee was disbanded, Cayetano came out of retirement, formed a new campaign committee, and entered the Honolulu mayor’s race. None of the former funds went to the new committee. Zero. And I don’t think PRP ever said that any funds were actually still around to be transferred to the new committee.
They argued, though, that Cayetano had some obligation to take new, legal funds donors contributed for the mayoral race and return comply with the Campaign Spending Commission’s order to return any illegal contributions (an order which had already been complied with years before).
Okay, we’re down to rather small differences in “spin,” but these small differences had big impacts. And the fact that they misled an astute political observer like Jones shows how insidious they were.
PRP could have simply unrolled a negative campaign based on their opinion that Cayetano “must” have known about the illegal contributions. But their campaign conveyed the impression that it wasn’t simply their opinion, but was a fact, an impression bolstered by a bunch of paperwork from the Campaign Spending Commission.
PRP’s success was the result of skillfully morphing the former into a public perception of the latter, relying on the public to fill in the gaps in the explicit attack.
Of course, this part and parcel of the world of negative campaigning. A lot of people say they deplore it, but it continues to work, as Jones also notes in his MidWeek column.
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Your points are well made. I just don’t think very many people read Bob’s column anymore, though. He has become very self-indulgent in his old age, unfortunately, and a lot of his writing isn’t interesting now. He and Cayetano both need to retire for real.
I probably sould like a broken record by now but…
PRP never said, in so many words, that Cayetano knew the contributions were illegal. Neither did they say he knew who they were from. But it was Cayetano himself who said at the time that he didn’t know anything at all about the contributions and that he didn’t even know who they were really from.
But in talking to people recently- especially those “low information voters” most stop me when I’m telling them the story and say “He didn’t KNOW? How could that be?” because people assume that that’s the very essence of why people make contributions- at best, buying access at worst a “vote.”
So the implication was there but it was Cayetano’s denial that people found literally unbelievable. I think that, more than the PRP intimations themselves, cost him the election.
I, too, am a broken record……..
but negative and misleading campaigning is not new in Hawaii nor anywhere else.
PRP was very aggressive and determined …… but whining about it in an empty forest — in community discussions with the usual suspects — is the worst possible defense. Some Cayetanos seem to prefer winning the football game while losing the season 1-12.
In the year 2024, in my opinion, most people are going to wonder why Hawaii got so dramatic about a rail line between Kapolei and Honolulu.
Instead, we shall be bouncing off the walls in 2024 about those trillion-dollar proposals for evil interisland tunnels and their *impact* on baby whales. Just wait.
Horse. Dead. Beating.
To me the gagging part comes from those who knew the PRP was conducting a scuzzy negative campaign and never called them on it because it abetted their political aspirations.
In July of 2012, KITV reported on a PBS sponsored mayoral debate. Near the end of the piece, KITV mentions that “allegations over illegal campaign spending by Cayetano in the past” were brought up.
Here’s what a beneficiary of those allegations, who shared PRP’s goal of implementing a controversial multi-billion dollar rail system that was not projected to reduce traffic, had to say, and Ben Cayetano’s reaction as recounted by KITV:
“Bottom line is, it’s not acceptable it’s not ok,” said Caldwell.
“Come on man,” said Cayetano looking at Caldwell. “Look at me. Are you saying I did something wrong?”
http://www.kitv.com/politics/Rail-rules-the-night-in-mayoral-debate/15423774#!7X0q2
“a controversial multi-billion dollar rail system that was not projected to reduce traffic”
right. so Honolulu’s rotten traffic will not get worse if we do absolutely nothing. no need fo’ rail, den.
talk about misleading information.
and talk about that broken record.
reminds me of the GOP …… after Romney vanished into the thinnest of air in 2012. political deafness. Happy Fourth!
All this shows is how thin the bench is in Hawaii with regard to credible reporting and informed commentary. There’s lots more to say, but it’s just not worth it.
Gotta agree with the sentiment that this is beating a dead horse. Somebody write a letter of correction to MidWeek. There, over with, done.
In the meantime, are there other things that can be discussed, like Carroll Cox getting attacked for the second time over his investigation into illegal misdeeds on DHHL land?
Humm. Are there such things as legal misdeeds?
R Ferdun:
Yes. Misdeeds are immoral OR illegal. Check dictionary. thx.
Happy 4th to all dear nitpickers like me! pick dem nitz.
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