Mayor Peter Carlisle just wrapped up an impromptu campaign press conference on the grass in front of the state library across the street from Honolulu Hale.

Carlisle spoke to reporters a day after filing his campaign finance report. It showed he raised $53,000 in the last half of 2011, less than the $72,000 Kirk Caldwell says he raised in the last six weeks of the year.

We’ll have more juicy nuggets later, but the most interesting statement was that Carlisle hopes he’s able to win the race in the August primary. That is, he doesn’t want there to be a general election in November at all.

That would require he (or whomever the winner is) secure more than half of the vote. With three big-name candidates — Ben Cayetano is the other, in case you forgot — that will be a challenge.

If nobody gets 50 percent of the vote, the two top vote-getters from the primary advance to a one-on-one general election matchup.