Fieger's Decision Not to Run Helps Democrats' Chances

In a recent appearance on "Flashpoint," an interview show on WDIV-Channel 4, outspoken Southfield attorney Geoffrey Fieger announced his decision not to run for governor. During the interview, Fieger said he was interested in running, "but because I'm outspoken, it would be very easy for professional politicians to make me the issue."

Talk about an understatement.  Most Michiganders can vividly recall Fieger's ill fated run for the job in 1998, when he was the Democratic nominee against a well positioned John Engler. Engler took 62% of the vote in that election, a real landslide. By then Fieger had burnished not one, but actually two reputations--that of an effective civil and criminal defense attorney, AND that of a verbal flame thrower.  During the campaign, he claimed his opponent John  Engler was a "product of barnyard miscegenation" and during a radio interview refereed to a group of judges with the Michigan Court of Appeals as a "group of jackasses" by overturning a 15 million dollar judgement he had won in a medical malpractice case.

With that type of baggage, and the propensity to blurt out more off the cuff zingers, can Fieger really be considered a viable candidate for the state's highest office?  Ideology aside, voters might admire flamboyance in celebrity attorneys or movie stars, but always seem to expect a certain reserve amongst officeholders--which is perhaps a holdover from an era when politics was a much more civil activity than today.

Although the Democrats might be in for real rough sledding this year, their shot at victory is certainly better by nominating someone other than the famed attorney from Southfield.