Goss, Evans Locked in Ugliest Race in the Oregon House

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Shelby Sebens, GoLocalPDX Reporter

Weeks away from the election, the battle for the Oregon House heats up.

The gloves are off and mudslinging is the name of the game in Oregon’s House District 20 race, by far the ugliest political race in the House, with less than two weeks before Election Day.

Republican Kathy Goss, a former educator, is facing off with Democrat Paul Evans, a retired Airforce Major, for the Salem House seat, which is without an incumbent for the first time since 2002.

Earlier this month, the conservative group Oregon Family Council attacked Evans over a vampire novel, Springtime in Babylon, he helped write, saying the sexually graphic and violent nature of the book makes him unfit to serve in the legislature.

In July, an opposition-funded push poll that asked voters if a statement by Goss that women use methamphetamine to stimulate their sex drive would sway their opinion of her caused outrage among Republicans.

“At that point we realized they wanted to engage in mudslinging,” Goss’s campaign manager Hugh Ady said.

Although Democrats have a larger advantage in the House than the Senate, with the split being 34 to 26 in the House and 16-14 in the Senate, there is still a big push to gain seats. And one of those seats currently belongs to Republican Vicki Berger, who is not running for re-election.

Berger said she knew when she retired it would be a fierce battle for House Distric 20 in Salem. But, she said, this race has been "paticularly brutal."

“It just seems to me like tons and tons of mudslinging and ugly negative campaigning,” she said.

Republican Candidate Kathy Goss

Goss put out a press release last week, calling on Evans to “stop using deceptive tactics in his campaign.” The release blasts Evans' volunteers for signing pamphlets saying "sorry I missed you." The Goss campaign claims that because the writing is in different handwriting it appears Evans is trying to use volunteers to make it look like he's making personal stops.

Democrats called that "absurd."

"This is hands down one of the most absurd claims I’ve ever seen in politics, which makes it par for the course with the Goss campaign," Scott Moore, Oregon House Democrats spokesman, said. "Paul has a team of volunteers out knocking on doors and talking to voters—and Goss is complaining that they’re writing personal notes on the literature they leave behind? If Goss wants to keep highlighting the fact that Paul has one of the largest volunteer field campaigns in the state, I guess that's her prerogative."

Goss also pulled out of debates with Evans after the first one in September, citing negative campaign tactics by her opponent as the reason.

“The kinds of tactics that I and my team have been seeing, such as sending threatening letters, paying for untruthful push polls and filling debate forums with hostile supporters, are just a few examples of the kind of campaign that my opponent will continue to run,” she said in a press release.

Democratic Candidate Paul Evans

But the Evans campaign argues Goss just cannot hold her ground on the issues.

House Democrats have also put up a website blasting Goss for comments she made in the first debate, calling it “Oh my Goss.” The website includes clips of Goss from the debate where the audience can be heard booing after she states “Everyone but our President believes that Sharia law is inappropriate in this union.”

Swing District

The seat is targeted because voter registration between Democrats and Republicans in the district is about split.

Berger won the seat in 2012 with 63 percent of the vote but she has held the seat since 2002. Democrats are hoping the change will allow them to pick up a seat.

“There is a sense, in effect, she {Berger} got votes of moderates that would not support a Republican, but they just liked her,” political science professor at Pacific University Jim Moore said.

Both Goss and Evans have raised over $350,000, according to elections records.

Moore said it’s common for contentious races to get heated as the election draws near.

He said even if a voter has made up her mind, a piece of negative information can create doubt or questions.

“Most often it actually makes you just not vote in that race,” he said. “Either way it’s good for the people who are attacking.”

But candidates beware; too much negativity turns the tables.

“The problem with all of this is, at a certain point… people will blame the attacker for running a negative campaign,” Moore said. “It always bounces back.”