National Reports: The Election Michigan
HAMILTON, HOWARD D.
MICHIGAN Economic woes aid Democrats By Howard D. Hamilton LANSING THE HIGHLIGHT of the Michigan election is G. Mennen (Soapy) Williams's attempt to become the state's first four-term Governor....
...is trying a second time against Republican incumbent Kit Clardy...
...In the August primary, Leonard decisively defeated two veteran Republican leaders, State Treasurer D. Hale Brake and Secretary of State Owen J. Geary, each with strong machines...
...In the Twelfth District, which covers the western part of the Upper Peninsula??the land of cutover woods, iron, stumps, fish and snow...
...Leonard has been an able policeman, administrator and lawyer, and he gained a statewide reputation while state police chief and civil-defense director...
...If the people vote yes, the shaving-cream scion and pro-labor Governor??a favorite-son candidate with some out-of-state support at the party's 1952 convention??will become dean of Democratic Governors, although he is only 43 years old...
...This unusually good Democratic primary turnout partially accounts for the optimistic atmosphere in the Executive Office...
...But the August primary also demonstrated that the Governor has not lost his appeal...
...Most districts are overwhelmingly Republican if out-state, overwhelmingly Democratic if in Detroit...
...The latter is regarded by many as an archreactionary and neo-isolationist whose principal distinction during his maiden term has been membership on the House Un-American Activities Committee...
...In 1952, Hayworth lost by only 11,581 of the 204,945 votes cast, but there is no visible sign of a change...
...One of the more significant campaigns is in the Sixth District, where a Michigan State College speech professor, Donald Hayworth...
...Iron mining is currently back to normal, i.e., about half-time operation, and the UP, always a depressed area, is feeling the "rolling readjustment...
...Fourteenth and Seventeenth...
...Republicans think that Williams faces a formidable opponent in Donald Leonard, who, at 51, is vigorous, extroverted and personable...
...Republican Chairman Feikens states that the Republicans have a "fighting chance" to secure one additional seat, presumably in the Fourteenth, where Joseph Moynihan is opposing Democratic incumbent Louis Rabaut...
...He upset the veteran George O'Brien in the Thirteenth District, and, since that area is two-to-one Democratic, it is a fairly safe bet that the Eighty-fourth Congress will have a third Negro, and a capable one...
...Democrats hope that this will return Hook to the seat that he lost to Bennett in 1942, regained in 1944 and lost again in 1946...
...In fact, Clardy now has two advantages: He is an incumbent, and in an off-year election Democratic voting is traditionally light...
...The venerable Republican now seems assured of another term...
...A veteran AFL official and sometime member of the Detroit Common Council, McNamara is widely respected, but he reportedly does not arouse much enthusiasm among professional Democrats or even among fellow unionists, while Moody was considered to have at least a fighting chance of unhorsing Senator Homer Ferguson...
...The Democrats have about an equal chance in the suburban Seventeenth District, where Martha Griffiths opposes Republican incumbent Charles Oakman...
...Only four districts promise close races: the Sixth, Twelfth...
...ex-Congressman Frank Hook and Republican incumbent John Bennett are competing...
...In the lone Senate contest, the Democratic Senatorial nomination devolved upon Patrick McNamara after the death of the original candidate, Blair Moody...
...Democrats feel that their state ticket will be boosted materially by an anticipated Democratic trend nationally, the low prices of farm products, especially dairy prices, and an unemployment level of 250,000...
...He not only swamped his rivals in Wayne County but also trimmed them out-state...
...Although unopposed, Williams polled 427,000 votes, whereas the combined Republican Gubernatorial vote was only 467,000...
...Probably the only new face in Michigan's delegation in the next Congress will be that of Charles Diggs Jr...
...The Congressional campaigns are arousing scant interest, because there are so few contests...
Vol. 37 • October 1954 • No. 43
