The Kwame Bleed

September 3, 2010

DETROIT — A year ago, there were lots of reasons to think Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox would be the next governor.

The son of working-class Irish immigrants joined the Marines, put himself through the University of Michigan’s college and law school, and then was elected attorney general, the only Republican to win that office in Michigan in a half century.

He owned several compelling and popular issues, including efforts to make deadbeat parents pay child support, and, most recently, he led Michigan’s efforts to fight against Asian carp.

Mike Cox had big endorsements, name recognition, and campaign cash. Yet, in the end, he finished a weak third, behind Rick Snyder, the Ann Arbor venture capitalist who came out of nowhere, and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, from the western side of the state.

What happened?

The attorney general himself has no doubt: “I had to deal with the Kwame bleed,” meaning efforts to tie him to Detroit’s famously corrupt ex-mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick.

His opponents indeed hinted that he was too close to the former mayor, didn’t adequately investigate the long-rumored Manoogian Mansion “party,” and that both men were part of a corrupt network of Wayne County politicians.

Cox thought that wouldn’t stick — in part because it was his office that, in the end, was the mayor’s final downfall. After Kilpatrick assaulted two sheriff’s deputies, he filed the charges that led to the mayor resigning and taking a plea.

“I could have made this all go away by insisting on being in court and arguing the case myself,” he said. “But I didn’t do that — I thought Kym Worthy [the Wayne County prosecutor] had the right to do it, and I ended up paying for it.”

As for the legendary party, which allegedly featured strippers, sex acts, and an assault on an exotic dancer by the mayor‘s wife — Cox doubts it ever occurred.

For one thing, no credible witnesses have ever been found who say they were there. “There’s no evidence. As a prosecutor, how can I ethically charge anybody? What could I charge them with?”

It does seem hard to imagine — in our blabbermouth, Oprah world — that someone wouldn’t have talked.

But the party is now an accepted urban legend.

And others have a different take on the primary election, especially Hoekstra, who said on public TV’s Off the Record that his one consolation was that he finished ahead of Cox, whom he plainly despises. He accused the attorney general of running a vicious and nasty campaign right from the start.

“Positive campaigning is nice and wins good government awards, but never works,” said Cox, who reflected and added. “Look, I would have loved to have been positive, but I had to deal with the Kwame [attacks] started by Rick Snyder.”

“He put Kwame next to me in his first ad on the Super Bowl; he ended his campaign in Detroit with a group picture of me, Ella Bully Cummings [Kilpatrick’s pliant police chief] and Kwame.”

“And you know what — it worked for him.”

That may be true. But the attorney general and his supporters also ran a series of nasty ads attacking first Hoekstra, who for a while seemed to be his main opposition, and then Snyder.

Rick Snyder, who has never run for office before, then shrewdly said he would refuse to participate in further debates. This seemed to give the impression that he was not a “politician.”

Voters weary of negativity and squabbling seem to have turned to him. Many Democrats and independents apparently crossed party lines to vote for him as well, as the lesser of two evils.

In the end, the newcomer won easily.

Cox is still shell-shocked from his loss and unhappy with the media‘s treatment of his campaign. He notes that he did, early on, put out a detailed plan with ideas for revitalizing Michigan.

“Yet the press would never read or report on it; never analyze it or ask questions.” That, unfortunately, is largely true.

But Cox didn’t spend enough time telling his own story, either. He does, in fact, have an appreciation for and a knowledge of Detroit that is far deeper than that of most suburban politicians.

He was a shrewd litigator who, as a young lawyer, managed to quickly rise to head Wayne County’s homicide section, and he got a reputation for taking on the hard cases.

Nor has he forgotten his own middle-class roots. He noted that while other Republicans party with the swells, he prefers to “hang out in Livonia at Murphy’s on Seven Mile with just regular guys and gals.”

But little or none of that came out in this campaign. Today, he is a bit dazed. He never expected to lose, and made no fallback plan.

He thinks he’ll just go to work practicing law. But at age 48, he’s still more than young enough to run for office again.

My guess is the odds are that there will be a next time. If there is, one wonders which Mike Cox we will see.

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.