Columnist David Broder: Democrats are party to a shameful candidate

David Broder

Thursday, Oct. 8, 1998 | 11:03 a.m.

IT'S A TOUGH YEAR for Democrats in many places, what with President Clinton battling possible impeachment and Republican governors, who are seeking re-election in most of the big states, riding the wave of economic growth and declining welfare rolls.

But when party leaders compare notes about the November election, no one has a more woeful tale to tell than Michigan's Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer. Clinton is the least of his problems.

At the top of the Democratic ticket is Detroit trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger, perhaps the most self-destructive candidate for major office anywhere in the country this year. Fieger once was best known as the attorney who successfully defended Dr. Jack Kevorkian when Michigan prosecutors tried to stop "Dr. Death" from assisting more than 100 people to commit suicide.

But in his first campaign for public office, the 49-year-old Fieger has set new records for antagonizing allies and alienating voters.

When Fieger beat two more prosaic Democrats for the party nomination with a self-financed media campaign in the low-turnout August primary, the Republican State Committee happily distributed scores of old Fieger quotes, offensive to Catholics, Jews and other fairly significant voter groups.

It has stitched together some of his most infamous zingers in a 30-second spot, saturating the airwaves and allowing Republican Gov. John Engler (memorably described by Fieger as "the product of miscegenation between human beings and barnyard animals") to take the high road, talking about his third-term agenda and ignoring his opponent.

Last week, two public polls showed Fieger trailing by more than 2-to-1, worse than he was running a month earlier. His disapproval score has climbed to 61 percent and is still rising. As one veteran Michigan Democrat told me, "He only takes his foot out of his mouth to change feet."

Lately, Fieger has seemed to tire of insulting cardinals, rabbis and Engler's family. His favorite target now is his own party.

In an interview last week with the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press, reported by Hugh McDiarmid, a veteran and trusted Michigan political observer, Fieger said, "There is no Democratic Party. I said it in the primary and I need to say it again. It doesn't exist. It really doesn't exist. It's a set of bones that, every four years, they put some fat and skin on and sort of pump up."

That nonexistent party is headquartered in the Kennedy-Hart House here -- named for the late president and for the late senator from Michigan, Phil Hart, who was so revered by his colleagues of both parties that they named one of their office buildings for him.

On the walls of the reception room are portraits of other notable Michigan Democrats from Gov. G. Mennen (Soapy) Williams, who brought the party to power after World War II, down to Sen. Carl Levin, who keeps the same tradition of principled liberalism and honorable public service alive in Washington today.

For a man with many afflictions, Brewer seemed remarkably calm when I saw him one afternoon last week. He offered some modest spin, claiming "the private polls have Fieger down 50-to-30, not 60-to-20." He said that despite Fieger's recalcitrance, Democrats are running their usual coordinated campaign, seeking votes for the entire ticket.

Brewer is too honest to deny what is obvious: Many Democrats are cutting loose from Fieger, either staying neutral (like Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer) or saying publicly they cannot support Fieger (like Rep. Bart Stupak).

The Democrats' great fear is that Engler's coattails will give the Republicans the four additional seats they need for a majority in the state House of Representatives and complete control in Lansing, where the Senate is already in GOP hands. Term limits kick in this year, so 64 of the 110 house seats are open -- adding to the Democrats' vulnerability.

Their hope to halt the landslide rests in Jennifer Granholm, the 39-year-old Wayne County corporation counsel, former federal prosecutor, Harvard Law grad and mother of three, who is their nominee to succeed Frank Kelly, the retiring Democratic veteran, as attorney general.

Polls put her dead even with Republican John Smietanka, who lost to Kelly in 1994 but came back this year to defeat Engler's first choice for the job.

Granholm is everything as a candidate Fieger is not, and if she wins her race, she could head the ticket for governor in 2002, and make that a much happier year for Brewer and a lot of other Democrats.