Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman’s motive — the spotlight or Las Vegas’ future?

Carolyn_Goodman

Justin M. Bowen

Las Vegas mayor candidate Carolyn Goodman schmoozes with a potential voter during a campaign event this month at El Cortez.

Carolyn Goodman Campaigns

Las Vegas mayoral candidate, Carolyn Goodman, talks with patrons of The Beat Coffee Shop in downtown Las Vegas Friday, February 11, 2011 as she campaigns for the seat being left by her husband. Launch slideshow »

A week into the race for Las Vegas mayor and Carolyn Goodman is campaigning at El Cortez.

Her host, Alexandra Epstein, is the casino’s executive manager and a graduate of Goodman’s Meadows School. They greet each other with a hug and kiss. Then Candidate Goodman works her way through the casino floor, shaking employees’ hands and posing for pictures with customers.

“I’m Carolyn Goodman, the mayor’s wife. I’m running for mayor,” she says over and over. As she delivers the line she hands out casino chips bearing her likeness, much like the chips her husband has handed out for the past 12 years declaring himself the “Happiest Mayor.” Except her chips are yellow, typically worth $1,000, twice the value of her husband’s black ones.

In the gift shop, Carolyn meets store manager Maria Mihutu, who tells her that she lived downtown for decades and loved it. She goes on to say she had to move a few years ago because development and construction forced her out.

Mihutu was raising a key counterargument to Mayor Oscar Goodman and his predecessor’s approach to redeveloping the city’s frayed core. But Carolyn didn’t address the issue or ask Mihutu how city leaders could have helped her stay in the neighborhood they have desperately worked to lure people to over the past decade.

Instead, she raised her most immediate concern: getting Carolyn Goodman elected mayor.

Is Mihutu still a city resident, she asked.

She is.

“Good. I hope you’ll vote for me,” she said before turning and leaving the store.

Mihutu was excited to have met Carolyn. Most people she encounters are. She’s warm and friendly and energetic — like the best version of your grandmother, urging you to eat more, then offering you hand sanitizer when you’re finished.

But Goodman’s interaction with Mihutu highlights what her opponents and critics see as her greatest shortcoming — that she cares more about winning and perpetuating her family’s celebrity than improving constituents’ lives.

“Make no mistake, she’s as big a ham bone as Oscar,” a source close to the couple said of her love of the spotlight.

Carolyn entered the race for mayor on the second to last day of filing, after telling friends and political allies for more than a year that she wouldn’t run. Political insiders immediately questioned her motives.

Term limits are forcing out her husband after 12 years in office. Her critics said her candidacy was a ploy to keep her husband in power.

Many of those critics support other candidates and saw those people’s political aspirations take a hit when she entered the race. Others are simply projecting their dislike of Oscar, who they see as all style and no substance, onto his wife. Some think 12 years with a Goodman in office is enough.

Carolyn says her husband tried to persuade her not to run, but many political insiders find that hard to believe (in part because Oscar knows as well as anyone that Carolyn wears the pants in the family). Both enjoy the spotlight. Four more years with a mayor in their household would keep them in demand.

Carolyn stresses that she wants to be judged on her own merits. “I am my own person, and I will stand on my own beliefs,” she says adamantly. And she has an impressive professional track record at Meadows.

But in the next breath she introduces herself to voters as “Oscar’s wife.”

It’s a sound strategy, even if she’s loath to own it. Carolyn is a front-runner in the crowded race. A recent poll showed her leading her next closest competitors — Clark County Commissioners Chris Giunchigliani and Larry Brown — by more than a 2 to 1 margin.

Much of that support can likely be attributed to her last name. Oscar is Southern Nevada’s most popular politician, known internationally for his showgirls, gin and “happiest mayor” shtick.

On that sunny Friday at El Cortez, Las Vegas resident Paula Daoang noticed a commotion surrounding Carolyn. A campaign worker explained that the woman at the center of the crowd was the mayor’s wife and also is running for mayor.

Daoang beamed and rushed to snap a picture.

“I don’t know much about her,” she said. “But I know her husband does a lot.”

Does that translate into a vote, the campaign worker asked.

“Absolutely!” Daoang said.

Carolyn says she wants to continue pursuing her husband’s vision for the city. “The only reason I would even consider running for mayor is if we don’t find someone who is truly going to carry that torch,” she told the Sun in January 2010.

It appeared to many that her concerns had been addressed by a field of candidates including a councilman and former councilman closely aligned with Oscar. In fact, all of the leading candidates have made downtown revitalization — Oscar’s top priority during his tenure — a focus of their campaigns.

But Carolyn insists only she can carry her husband’s torch.

“My feeling is they’re individuals, and they’ll want it their way,” she said of her opponents.

Carolyn and Oscar Goodman have been married for 48 years. She describes them as “joined at the hip.” They met in Pennsylvania in the late 1950s while both were attending college. Carolyn, 71, grew up in New York City, the daughter of a doctor father and economist mother. She often tells the story of how her parents tried to bribe her to marry anyone but Oscar Goodman.

The couple moved to Las Vegas in 1964 — with only $87, as they tell the story — so Oscar could take a job at a law firm. She worked as an assistant at the Riviera and Caesars Palace before attending UNLV to get a master’s degree in counseling. She founded the private Meadows School in 1984 and ran it until she retired in June.

Together they raised four children: Oscar Jr., a doctor; Ross, a lawyer; Eric, a judge; and Cara, a therapist. Carolyn is hard-pressed to go five minutes without telling stories about them or her six grandchildren.

On the campaign trail, Carolyn’s talking points resonate. A crowd of more than 100 burst into applause at her campaign kickoff as she listed her goals: creating jobs, attracting new businesses, enticing young people downtown and ensuring that the arts and music flourish.

But she is thin on specifics. When asked how she plans to achieve her objectives, she is unusually quiet.

“As soon as I say it, I’ll hear it out of someone else’s mouth,” Carolyn says before declining to elaborate on her plans.

To be sure, she has the skill set to succeed as mayor, and she’s a force in her own right, apart from her husband. She grew the Meadows School into an elite academy that now boasts 150 employees and a $17 million budget. She is an avid fundraiser (sure to help with her campaign) and has sat on dozens of boards.

“So much of the mayor’s job is based on relationships,” Carolyn’s campaign manager Bradley Mayer said. “She knows everyone. That makes getting things done easier.”

And she doesn’t like being told no.

If the story of her decision to run is sincere, and her husband truly did try to talk her out of it, perhaps that was the motivation that sealed her decision.

“I’m wise enough to know when something is right,” she says. “When people say you can’t, I say I can.”

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