Mayor Mufi Hannemann missed an opportunity to lock up re-election in Saturday's primary, political strategists said, leaving an opening for City Councilwoman Ann Kobayashi to turn public unease about mass transit to her advantage in the November runoff.

Hannemann and his campaign aides said yesterday that record low voter turnout kept the mayor from breaking the 50 percent threshold for victory. They were confident that higher turnout in November would push him over the top against Kobayashi.

"I think there is just difficulty in getting people out to vote in a primary election. Everybody wants to wait for the general election," Hannemann said. "Despite our best efforts to get our voters out and get a higher turnout, it didn't occur."

But several political strategists, speaking privately, said Hannemann's campaign should have had a more extensive get-out-the-vote operation or more persuasive advertising that would have capitalized on his voter identification list and high job approval ratings. The strategists found Hannemann's tactics odd given he had more than $3 million in campaign money available for field operations and television, radio and direct mail.

Now, the strategists say, the mayor will likely have to spend more campaign money than necessary and push back harder against Kobayashi to compensate for the perception he did not take his challengers more seriously in the primary.

Don Clegg, a political consultant who did not do poling for Kobayashi, said he did not understand why Hannemann was not more aggressive in his get-out-the-vote operation. He said Hannemann's campaign knew turnout was likely to be below average and that motivated anti-rail voters would boost the vote for Kobayashi and University of Hawai'i-Manoa professor Panos Prevedouros.

"His supporters were pretty sure he was going to win so they didn't make the extra effort to get out," said Clegg, who believes there was more urgency behind the challengers.

A.J. Halagao, Hannemann's campaign coordinator, said the campaign had a credible get-out-the-vote operation through telephone calls, e-mails and friend-to-friend cards sent to likely Hannemann voters. Hannemann also voted early to send a message about the importance of voting and appeared at dozens of community events and sign-waving efforts.

Halagao acknowledged, however, that the campaign chose not to blanket O'ahu with campaign signs or take a sharper tone against the mayor's opponents in advertising. He also conceded that perhaps some of Hannemann's supporters were overconfident.

"I think people said, 'Well, I think we've got it in the bag,' or 'maybe he's got this thing sewn up,' " he said. "So I think a lot of people thought he had such a big lead that it wasn't as critical to come out and vote."

NOVEMBER STRATEGIES

Despite some of the post-mortems about tactics, Hannemann remains in an excellent position for re-election. He has campaign money, is popular with the broader electorate, and beat Kobayashi by more than 30,000 votes on Saturday. Hannemann pulled in more than 80,000 votes in the primary, which was more than the 78,000 he took when he fell behind former Councilman Duke Bainum in the 2004 primary. Hannemann won the general election in 2004 with 147,000 votes, which shows the potential difference between primary and general election turnout.

"We took the high road. There was a lot of misinformation that was put out there and, I think, a distortion of our record," Hannemann said. "Now, as we go into the general election, it's going to be very different."

The mayor said voters "will now be able to really examine us side by side. And that's what I like."

Kobayashi, who entered the campaign at the filing deadline in July and has not been able to compete financially, did not move beyond the base level of support that private polls identified when she first announced.

Although the precinct-by-precinct vote will provide more details in the coming days, analysts believe that a slightly higher than expected showing by Prevedouros and several of the lesser-known candidates likely cost Hannemann victory. Prevedouros based his campaign on his opposition to Hannemann's plans for a $3.7 billion steel-on-steel rail project, and he was the favorite choice among anti-rail voters.

Kobayashi said yesterday that she would use her differences with Hannemann on rail to distinguish herself from the mayor in the coming weeks. Kobayashi has supported a rubber tire-on-concrete option for mass transit but said she is also open to high occupancy toll lanes and other alternatives to help reduce traffic congestion.

"Mass transit doesn't have to be steel-on-steel and that's a message we've been trying to get out there because we know there's a traffic problem, we want some sort of mass transit, but steel-on-steel is not the answer," she said. "I think the economy — and the steel-on-steel would really affect our economy and the visual impact on our city, the environmental impact — there are many issues that need to be brought up.

"And now we have the chance to keep talking about them."

Neal Milner, a political analyst and ombudsman at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, described Kobayashi's position on mass transit as "fuzzy" and said she would have to do better in explaining her differences with the mayor to have a chance in the runoff. Other analysts and strategists, speaking privately, believe Kobayashi will struggle to catch Hannemann unless public-opinion polls that show substantial support for the rail project are wrong.

Prevedouros said he would meet with Kobayashi this week about a possible endorsement. With a ballot question on rail before voters in November, the professor said he would continue to speak publicly against Hannemann's steel-on-steel proposal.

Prevedouros predicted that most of his voters would go to Kobayashi. "Although our positions are not really that close, they are much closer than my positions with the incumbent mayor," he said. "Ann clearly didn't pledge to stop rail but she is open to alternatives."

'NOTHING IS INEVITABLE'

Reaction to the mayoral primary showed that Hannemann was not only dealing with Kobayashi and Prevedouros, but also expectations about his future political strength. The mayor has not committed to serving out the full four years of a second term and is considered the Democrat with the most options for higher office in 2010 and beyond.

"I think rail is going to become a major issue now because of the ballot question," said state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), who helped persuade Kobayashi to run. "The general election is going to be a completely new situation. She's a very legitimate candidate."

Hanabusa said the primary may have ended any idea that Hannemann was invincible. "Our hope is that if there is anything that comes out of it, it's that he realizes that he's got to listen to people and he's got to keep his word," she said. "He can't just basically take the attitude that it's my way or the highway, which has been his style, no matter what anybody says. That has been his style."

Gov. Linda Lingle, speaking to Republicans at a unity lunch at state GOP headquarters on Kapi'olani Boulevard, cited comments by Hannemann to the news media on Saturday night that his re-election was "inevitable" as a cautionary example for Republican state House and Senate candidates and GOP volunteers.

"Inevitable means 'certain to happen.' Well, as we know, only one thing is certain to happen to us in life, we're going to go to the next life, if you will," the governor said. "People say taxes are inevitable, but even there you can get an extension.

"This is a lesson to you incumbents. Nothing is inevitable."

KEEPING ELECTION LOCAL

Leaders from both major political parties were troubled by the low voter turnout in the primary, which, at 35 percent statewide, was the lowest since statehood. Higher turnout is expected in the general election, but some Democrats who had been predicting unprecedented voter interest because Hawai'i-born U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee are now talking more cautiously.

Democrats hope that an Obama wave helps their candidates down the ballot and preserves gains the party has made over the past few election cycles in the state House and Senate. Democrats hold a 44 to 7 majority in the House and a 22 to 3 majority in the Senate, but could lose between two and five House seats in November unless turnout is strong.

"I think the folks who are for Obama are going to turn out. They're not going to miss out on being part of this history-making event," said U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, who has been campaigning for Obama on the Mainland and believes his voters want to make a statement. "They're just not going to miss it."

Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's sister and a history teacher at La Pietra Hawai'i School for Girls, told Democrats at a unity breakfast at the Ala Moana Hotel of the importance of helping Obama in Nevada and other potential swing states in the West in addition to the Islands.

"Please encourage all of your constituencies, all of your people, neighbors and families, to continue to work for Hawai'i, to make sure that we bring in the largest percentages of any state in the union," said Soetoro-Ng, who will campaign for her brother on the Mainland in October.

Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, at the Republican lunch, told state Republican candidates to fight back against Democratic attempts to nationalize local campaigns. In 2006, when Lingle swept to re-election, Democrats were able to make gains at the Legislature by largely ignoring Lingle and linking state Republican candidates to an unpopular President Bush.

"You can't get caught up in a lot of the rhetoric that's going to come out in the next month. And part of that rhetoric is going to be on the national scene," Aiona said. "They're going to try to draw us in to Barack Obama and national politics and national policies, and it's entirely different here in Hawai'i.

"And what you as candidates need to understand is that you have to focus, you really have to focus now on your race. It should only be you and the people in front of you, and nothing else."