Here's my Sunday column ...
Internal elections for a state party chairman typically produce little intrigue, but the intense, behind-the scenes campaign for the Michigan Democratic Party leadership pits a coarse, Macomb County-schooled, longtime incumbent against a smooth, charismatic newcomer who has adeptly created a bandwagon effect for his candidacy.
The result? A campaign with surrogates for Chairman Mark Brewer and challenger Lon Johnson locked in a hardball political battle for support from Democratic delegates as the Saturday state convention approaches.
How bad is it? Amid rumors about attempts to essentially steal the election, Johnson's camp wants to put the convention election in the hands of a neutral entity. Perhaps Jimmy Carter is available.
While some in the Detroit media portray this race as a contest between two like-minded candidates with a mutual respect for each other, the internal campaign has been cut-throat.
Johnson, a relative unknown among many of the party faithful, essentially launched his candidacy a little over a week ago with a massive surprise attack. The state’s entire Democratic congressional delegation endorsed Johnson for chair rather than Brewer, the 18-year incumbent.The back-stabbing and bad-mouthing quickly commenced.
Congressman Sandy Levin has never meshed with Brewer and he instigated his first attempt to oust the chairman two years ago. In recent days, sources say Levin has privately engaged in a no-holds-barred effort to line up support for the challenger. Stabenow, the other leading protagonist in this pro-Johnson push, may still be upset with Brewer’s Fall 2012 effort to have the senator share the wealth of her multi-million dollar campaign warchest once it became clear that she was cruising toward an easy victory in November.
That’s according to the talking points spoken in the shadows – at least those talking points that can be printed in a family newspaper.
Publicly, the Dem delegation said it was time for a fresh face to front the party, especially after the Republicans have secured solid control of the state House and Senate. In turn, the Johnson congressional coup generated snickers from the Brewer camp, with antagonists saying that the delegation’s geriatric unit – Reps. Levin, John Dingell and John Conyers, plus Sen. Carl Levin – has no business calling for fresh blood.
What’s more, the party’s top elected officials didn’t vet Johnson. He has a spotty voting history that shows he has failed to vote in several recent elections and is a solid no-show for local school and municipal elections. Worst of all, Johnson wants to lead the party in its 2014 campaign bid to defeat Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, yet records show that he did not cast a ballot in November 2010 when Snyder was first elected.
At the same time, Brewer’s recent track record may be his undoing. In a Blue State (at the presidential level), the Republicans control all of state government: governor, attorney general, secretary of state, the House and Senate and the Supreme Court.
Johnson’s team, bolstered by full-time help from congressional aides and union representatives, followed up with another big setback for Brewer – 11 top Macomb County Democrats, including the “Big Five” countywide elected officials, threw their support to the challenger, snubbing Brewer, the stalwart of Macomb politics.
Still, some of the Johnson backing that came from Brewer’s back yard seemed forced. It appeared that many of those endorsing Johnson had never met him and some refused to talk about their decision to back him. Insiders say that Sandy Levin relentlessly pushed for the endorsements, asserting that party unity depended upon it.
Brewer supporters quickly countered with a press release announcing that seven of the nine Democrats on the Macomb County Board of Commissioners had endorsed the chairman. I’m told that, within minutes of that release going online, a UAW official called one of these commissioners and suggested that, if he didn’t withdraw his endorsement, his buddy-buddy relationship with the union was over.
That’s just one example of the bitter division within the labor community over this slugfest. Yet, the UAW that supported and dictated to Brewer over many years is hard-pressed to explain their sudden turnaround. Union President Bob King, who is not particularly attuned to Michigan politics, embarrassed himself last week when he blamed Brewer for Democratic losses in the 2012 state Senate races. The senators were not up for election in 2012.
Meanwhile, the pro-Brewer crowd is pulling out all the stops. In a move that some saw as dirty politics, they leaked documents that show Johnson was hit with nine building code violations over a short period of time on his Royal Oak house, which he was renting to tenants. The $625 in fines assessed by the 44th District Court probably will not sway the chairmanship election, but the court documents also revealed that Johnson was living with his wife in Chicago in late 2011 and early 2012, just months before he ran for a state House seat in the Kalkaska area.
I’m told by northern Michigan political observers that Johnson was a hard-working and charismatic candidate but he lost the House election largely due to voter perceptions that he was a “carpetbagger.” Now, some of those who closely watched that losing effort are stunned that this resident of rural, Republican Kalkaska County could mount a substantive campaign to become the Democratic Party chairman.
Brewer, 57, who can be as gruff in substance as his gravelly voice sounds, has certainly rubbed certain top party officials the wrong way over time. A veteran of Macomb politics (many don’t remember that he helped spearhead the first attempt, a 1986 ballot proposal, to create a charter/executive form of county government) Brewer is a product of a county where politics is a blood sport.
Johnson, 41, (a “West Wing”/Rob Lowe lookalike) has been the picture of professionalism, insisting that no question from the media is out of bounds. Without hesitation, he has calmly laid out his personal and professional history to The Macomb Daily.
That historical trail, reflecting a vagabond political life, may be his primary weakness. It appears that Johnson, who formerly worked for the national Democratic Party, has no roots anywhere.
Since 2000, Johnson has lived in Washington, the Downriver town of Rockwood, Washington again, Royal Oak, Iraq (working for a nonprofit), Kalkaska, Washington a third time, Kalkaska again, Washington a fourth time, Chicago, and then Kalkaska a third time.
In his favor, Johnson clearly has big-league party connections – his wife, Julianna Smoot, was President Obama’s 2012 deputy campaign manager – and he could potentially raise millions upon millions of dollars for the state party. He has also demonstrated an ability in this campaign to effectively use social media sites, particularly Facebook.
Still, Brewer is an old-school survivor, a fighter. It’s no coincidence that he is the longest-serving state party chair in the nation.
Saturday’s Michigan Democratic Party convention would typically attract a rather modest crowd of about 1,500 delegates. But with this bruising political fight -- a possible 15-rounder – at the top of the bill for the Cobo Center event, perhaps the party could sell tickets to this spectacle.
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