CLINTON — The gloves came off at the first voters’ forum for candidates on the November ballot on Tuesday, but it was mostly incumbents who spent the night on the ropes.

A foursome of feisty newcomers from both parties pulled no punches, attacking county elected officials and their counterparts from Olympia in the first round of several scheduled debates.

First in the ring was Laura Lewis, a Stanwood Democrat challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Norma Smith for her 10th District seat in the state House.

Lewis hammered Smith on her record, saying the Clinton Republican’s votes don’t match her rhetoric.

“She voted no on key issues that are different than what she tells the people she votes on,” Lewis charged, noting Smith’s vote against a business-assistance bill.

“She said she cares for the most vulnerable, and yet she voted no on issues like enhanced 911, the hospital safety net bill,” Lewis added.

At times, the jabs came fast and furious.

“In addition to voting against the hospital safety net bill, enhanced 911 services, she also voted against infant disorder and screening, and at-risk children screening. She voted against educational reform. She voted against school levies,” Lewis said.

Lewis, a write-in candidate and a heavy underdog in the race, said voters could count on her to follow through.

“I will vote like I tell ya, and I will ask you what you think and I will not lie to ya,” she said.

Smith, however, gave as good as she got.

“I think my opponent brought up two great examples of what does divide us, in terms of our fundamental view of what government ought to be doing,” she said.

“Enhanced 911, I did vote against that,” she said. “And any of you who know me know that there is no greater supporter of 911 in this state. My husband gave his life serving our communities as an EMS helicopter pilot.”

Smith said she voted against the bill because Republicans offered an amendment to pay for the measure with existing revenues, but were shot down. Democrats increased taxes to pay for the enhanced program.

“911 ought to be a government priority,” Smith said.

Smith, as well as fellow 10th District Republican Barbara Bailey, told the crowd that sometimes what’s in a bill doesn’t match its title. It was that way with the bill to assist small businesses, Smith said.

“You know what that was? It was a new fee,” she said.

Bailey painted a personal picture for the crowd of growing up in Missouri, and of the homegrown values she’d take back to Olympia. Like others, she tried to tap the larger, nationwide themes guiding this year’s election.

“We’re going to set the course in the next election, I believe, for the next decade of what our country is going to look like in the coming years,” Bailey said.

“We have to reform government, we have to reset, resize government to live within its means and not take any more from the taxpayers,” she said.

Tom Riggs, a Camano Island Democrat seeking to unseat Bailey, attacked the incumbent for the large amounts of contributions from big business that have filled Bailey’s campaign coffers.

“We have a system that isn’t working for the working people,” he added. “I look around, I see my friends are losing their jobs, I see neighbors having their houses foreclosed, and I see a political system that seems to cater to the top 2 percent and does not seem to be listening to the will of We the People.”

Riggs said Washington can be a leader in renewable energy, a move that would create jobs while reducing the state’s carbon footprint.

“I believe that our tax dollars should be reinvested in our state,” he said.

“Washington money spent on Washington products,” Riggs said, from paper in state offices to apples in school lunchrooms.

He called out Bailey’s votes on the 2010 Jobs Act, the consumer protection act, clean energy, children’s health coverage and campaign contribution limits.

Bailey responded to her vote on the Jobs Act by pointing to a core principle she said she held.

“I truly believe the best jobs are in the private sector, not in government.

“You see, if government goes out and tries to make a job, they also spend your tax dollars to pay for that job. So consequently, the best job is in the private sector that pays taxes. And it takes none of your tax dollars to make that job. That’s the best kind of job.”

The hardest shots of the evening came when Mary Wilson Engle, a Republican, squared off against her boss, Island County Assessor Dave Mattens, the Democratic office-holder.

She gave multiple examples of where properties had not been assessed properly, leaving other property owners to pick up the slack.

“Our appraisers currently don’t get training in the field, they don’t get the hands-on experience that’s necessary in order to ensure that when your appraisal comes to you, it is accurate, consistent and uniform,” she said.

Engle vowed to cut upper-level management and keep working in the field on appraisals.

Mattens suggested she should stay an appraiser, and doubted her ability to take over as assessor.

“I have four appraisers in my office that have more seniority than Mary does and are probably far better qualified to fill my shoes than my opponent,” Mattens said.