Did you catch the allusion to Richard Nixon in the Hawaii Senate debate last night?

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa brought up the issue of Andy Winer and his work for Pacific Resource Partnership in the Honolulu mayoral race in 2012.

Winer, who is now Schatz’s chief of staff, played a key roll in the smear campaign against former Gov. Ben Cayetano, who lost to pro-rail candidate Kirk Caldwell.

Cayetano had vowed to stop the rail project, which would not have pleased the carpenters union, which is tied to the PRP super PAC.

Hanabusa noted that Schatz had called PRP’s work “deplorable” in a debate last week. (My own reporting says Schatz called it “deeply objectionable.”)

U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa waits for U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz to enter the debate set at KITV studio, July 7, 2014.

PF Bentley/Civil Beat

“So, Brian, what did you know of Andy’s involvement in the deplorable smear, as you call it, and when did you know it?” she asked Schatz more than once.

Hanabusa was clearly riffing on Howard Baker’s oft-cited quote, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

Baker, who passed away late last month, was a U.S. senator during the Watergate hearings into Nixon’s corrupt White House, the hearings that helped led to Nixon’s eventual downfall.

If Schatz got the Nixon reference, he didn’t say. Instead, he said he hired Winer because he’s good at his job.

The senator also pointed out that Winer had previously worked for Mazie Hirono, Dan Akaka and Hanabusa herself.