Sniping starts quickly in race for governor

By JULIA SILVERMAN
Associated Press writer

May 18, 2006

PORTLAND — Wasting no time after comfortable wins in their respective primaries, Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Republican challenger Ron Saxton lobbed some zingers at each other Wednesday, offering voters a sneak peek at how the campaigns might unfold over the next six months.

Kulongoski, who is also trying to shore up union support and fend off an independent campaign by state Sen. Ben Westlund, allowed that Saxton was “a good person’’ before suggesting that the Portland attorney and former school board chairman was cut from the conservative fringe.
“We just disagree on how we see things,’’ Kulongoski said. “He is a very conservative person, and I don’t think he represents the majority of people in this state.’’

For his part, Saxton echoed a strategy he used successfully against former GOP chair Kevin Mannix in the primary, ribbing Kulongoski as out-of-touch after a lifetime spent in politics, including stints as a state Attorney General and Oregon Supreme Court justice.

“He got here with a lifetime of being involved in government,’’ Saxton said. “I got here with a lifetime of being involved in the real world.’’

With the primary safely over, voters will be able to choose between candidates with different stands on key issues, from their stances on the size and scope of government to their views on Oregon’s tax structure.

But even within their traditional constituencies, both candidates have some fences to mend. By noon on Wednesday, Kulongoski said he had already been on the phone to some of the groups that supported his closest primary challenger, former State Treasurer Jim Hill, including the major union representing state employees, the SEIU.

The union’s president, Joe DiNicola, was noncommittal Wednesday, saying members had made “no decision yet as to which, if any, candidate we would endorse.’’

But Jeff Alworth, co-founder of the progressive blog www.blueoregon.com said he suspects that traditionally Democratic groups will fall into line behind the governor, despite their well-documented frustration with some of the actions Kulongoski has championed, like reforms to the Public Employees Retirement System.

Saxton, meanwhile, is in a precarious balancing act: 53 percent of GOP primary voters opted for either Mannix or state Sen. Jason Atkinson of Central Point, both of whom have deep roots among social conservatives. But conventional wisdom also dictates that in order to win in November, Saxton will have to tailor his message to appeal to the state’s centrist voters.

“I think Ron has a lot of appeal to social conservatives, especially a pragmatic one, who realizes Ron will be way, way, way better than Kulongoski,’’ said Oregon Right to Life executive director Gail Atteberry, whose group campaigned for Mannix. “On the other hand, he is not a solid one. We are going to see a little dialogue among the social conservatives about this race.’’

Between the two candidates, it was Kulongoski who was the most vocal about Westlund, a former Republican from Bend who is mounting an effort to get onto the ballot as an independent.

“I have known Senator Westlund for 10 or 15 years, and all the time I have known him, he has been a registered Republican,’’ Kulongoski said. “The guy changed stripes a month before the filing deadline. He thought the election would be Mannix and me, and thought he would be in the middle of us. It isn’t going to happen that way.’’

Saxton, perhaps signaling that the GOP currently has fewer concerns about a Westlund candidacy draining their voters, wouldn’t offer much comment on Westlund, saying only, “Ben Westlund isn’t even on the ballot yet — I don’t intend to be running a campaign against him.’’

Westlund, whose campaign is launching a new radio ad aimed at raising his name ID outside of his Central Oregon base, said the verbal grenades were a signal that he was not a candidate to be overlooked.

“It just indicates how viable a candidate we are in this race, and how seriously they are taking us,’’ Westlund said. “We take strong stands on both sides of the aisle — I’m a gun-rights and gay-rights guy. I don’t think any of them can make that claim.’’

After their primary victory laps, both Kulongoski and Saxton will dive back into fundraising. The race looks like it could become the most expensive gubernatorial contest in the state’s history.

All that money will presumably be aimed at boosting voter turnout in the fall. The Secretary of State’s office reported Wednesday that statewide turnout was 38 percent, well short of the 46 percent reached in the 2002 primary.