Michigan's Cool Hand Luke

National Review, Nov 7, 1986 by S.J. Masty

MICHIGAN'S COOL HAND LUKE

WHERE MICHIGAN POLITICS the soap opera it sometimes seems, black Republican Bill Lucas would have countless seasons to run for governor. Instead, he has only a few weeks, and the question is whether "Cool Hand Luke," as President Reagan called him, is too "chilled out" to win.

Much is at stake besides his chance at being the first black governor of any American state. Former Democrat Lucas is an anti-affirmative-action, pro-life, tax-cutting conservative who could lead a significant number of black voters off the liberal-Democratic reservation. "Bill Lucas could make conservatism respectable for blacks just as Ronald Reagan made it respectable for whites generally, and the neoconservatives did for Jews," says Harry Veryser, president of the Michigan Conservative Union. "There's a lot of blacks out there who believe in conservative values and lead conservative lives, but Republicans have never had the credibility to reach them."

Unfortunately, Lucas has an uphill battle against incumbent Democratic Governor James Blanchard. Blanchard raised state taxes by 38 per cent and increased spending by 20 per cent, or double the federal rate; jobs and industry are still fleeing over the border. But the governor's upbeat image and the effects of an improved national economy foster complacency. Republican efforts to convert apathy to activism have been hindered by bad campaign advice from the state GOP's dominant liberal wing and Lucas's own relaxed style.

If Ronald Reagan's resume reds like a Hollywood script, so does Lucas's. His mother took in washing to raise her Catholic family; Lucas's sister is a nun, and his brother, a pistol-packing priest, runs a tough parochial school in Harlem. Lucas himself worked as a teacher, welfare officer, and New York City cop before graduating from Fordham Law School in 1962. After two years as a civil-rights attorney, he joined the FBI as a special agent. Lucas still speaks of his admiration for J. Edgar Hoover, but as Detroit News columnist Pete Waldmeir put it, in those days, "a black dude had better talk better than Harry Belafonte and dance better than Sammy Davis Jr." if he ever hoped to impress the director. Years before affirmative action, there's no doubt Lucas made it the hard way.

After five years in the FBI, and a year as deputy sheriff, he was elected sheriff of Wayne County (where Detroit is located) in 1969, remaining in that post until he was elected Wayne County Executive in 1982. In the meantime, he and his wife, Evelyn, raised five children, most of whom are doctors.

In 1977, Lucas was one of five men on the Carter Administration's short list of FBI director--his only previous flirtation with big-league politics. But his success in rescuing bankrupt Wayne County, a perpetual budgetary basket case, won his statewide attention. Soft-spoken but tough, he canceled part of the county's massive debt to the state and started paying off the rest. Three years later, Wayne runs a modest surplus.

Lucas, however, was far down the queue of potential statewide candidates in the overloaded Democratic Party. Some charged him with opportunism when he switched parties in May 1985 after many longing gazes from state Republicans and a White House meeting with Vice President Bush. State Democratic chairman Rick Weiner called him "an ingrate." But given his views, a simpler interpretation is that the conservative lawman was being left behind by increasingly left-leaning Democrats.

Despite the ardent courting by Republican leaders, when he declared for governor in December, Lucas found himself in the ideological middle of a four-man primary. His most serious opponent was Dick Chrysler, an erratic selfmade millionaire, a conservative, and a supply-sider. Chrysler spent a record $3.5 million on the primary, $3.3 million out of his own pocket.

By late July, on the eve of the primary, Lucas trailed Chrysler by a critical half-dozen points in the polls. But, already hampered by two former wives and rumors of questionable business dealings, Chrysler was charged, in a last-minute Detroit News expose, with keeping his employees at work while they collected unemployment benefits. Chrysler's rhetoric on boot-strap capitalism soured overnight, and Lucas won by as many points as he had been behind the week before.

Recent elections suggest that, in Michigan, Republicans can win only by running as tough conservatives--particularly on the social issues--to draw out Michigan's socially traditional Democratic voters. Lucas's platform seemed a likely success: He's against abortion, against affirmative action, for tough welfare reforms, and for a constitutional amendment capping property taxes at 2.5 per cent instead of their current high of 8 per cent. While opposed to the death penalty, he's for jailing egregious offenders without parole. He does differ from Reaganite conservatives on one important matter--South African sanctions--but, then, so does nearly everyone running for office this year.