Geoffrey Fieger, the high-profile attorney best known for defending Jack Kevorkian, carried his trademark showmanship into politics and narrowly won the Democratic primary for Michigan governor.
“There’s a movement going on here, and that movement will turn out voters in unprecedented numbers,” Fieger said Wednesday during a news conference declaring victory. He also sharpened his criticism of Gov. John Engler, describing the Republican incumbent as “a serious threat to the people and the infrastructure of this state.”
Fieger, who helped persuade three juries to acquit Kevorkian, the well-known assisted-suicide doctor, made his lack of elected experience a central part of his first campaign for public office. Casting himself as an anti-establishment outsider, he promised to defend civil rights and said that while he does not support assisted suicide or abortion, such matters are “inherently a personal decision.”
Fueled by more than $1 million of his own money, Fieger ran an aggressive campaign that included frequent jabs at Engler and broad attacks on career politicians. In the end, he edged out Larry Owen, a lawyer who had sought support from labor unions and Democratic Party leaders.
With 97 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Fieger led with 288,762 votes, or 41 percent. Owen followed with 263,083 votes, or 37 percent, while Doug Ross, a former U.S. Labor Department official, had 152,029 votes, or 21 percent.
Fieger drew particularly strong support in heavily Democratic Detroit, despite Owen’s decision to choose a Black running mate from the Motor City.
“It’s Fieger time,” Fieger told supporters Tuesday night. “The men in Lansing know something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Engler? This is no time for the faint of heart.”
At Fieger’s election party in Detroit, Kevorkian said he had cast a ballot “for the third time in my life, I think.”
“He’s candid and forthright,” Kevorkian said. “Of all the politicians I know personally, he has more of the positive attributes.”
Engler is favored to win a third term because of the state’s strong economy and his nearly two dozen tax cuts.
Fieger proposes reducing the sales tax to 4 percent from 6 percent and reducing property taxes 5 percent across the board.
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In other primaries:
- Kansas Gov. Bill Graves continued his expensive campaign for a second term after easily defeating a socially conservative challenger for the Republican nomination.
In the traditionally Republican state, Graves held a 3-to-1 advantage over former state GOP chairman David Miller in a recent poll but worried he could be hurt by low turnout among moderates. Graves spent a record $1.6 million on the campaign, largely to encourage his supporters to vote.
“I ran harder than at any time in my life,” Graves said.
Graves will face House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer in November’s general election.
Bond and Nixon easily won the senate primaries. Nixon, the top statewide vote-getter in 1996, has lost crucial support lately among blacks because of his efforts to reduce Missouri’s spending on court-ordered school desegregation.
