Former Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano blamed the Pacific Resource Partnership for his loss in the Honolulu mayor’s race.

But he also told Civil Beat there was more at play in his unsuccessful bid to kill the $5.26 billion rail project.

“We foresaw that the general election would be tough and that there would be all sorts of obstacles that we would have to overcome,” Cayetano said. “So we looked at literally winning the primary.”

He said he was influenced by a Civil Beat poll that showed he had a shot of getting more than 50 percent of the vote in the Aug. 11 primary.

This caused Cayetano to spend most of his campaign cash in an attempt to put him over the hump.

“That turned out to be a strategic and tactical move that just didn’t quite pan out,” he said.

Had he held onto more money, Cayetano believes he would have had a better chance to fend off PRP’s attacks.

That said, he felt that constant defense distracted from his campaign.

“One of the things that we were forced to do because they were coming out so heavy is that we had to spend money defending ourselves and fighting back,” Cayetano said. “That kind of detracted from the issues that face the people. For example, the sewer and the water system have clearly been neglected over the years.

“We just didn’t have the resources to put that before the people in an effective way. We did it in our community forums, but that’s not quite enough reach.”

As it stands, Cayetano is now 8-1 in Hawaii elections.

—Nick Grube