Andy Meisner, the popular and ambitious Oakland County treasurer, is declaring his candidacy for county executive today, in his hometown of Ferndale, probably the hippest place in the county. There’s little doubt that the 45-year-old Meisner is qualified.
He’s an attorney who got his start as an aide to legendary Democratic congressman Sandy Levin, served the three terms allowed as a state representative, and then defeated an incumbent Republican to become county treasurer eleven years ago.
Meisner took office right when Michigan’s largest county was in the grip of the Great Recession, and he worked hard and impressively to reduce foreclosures and keep people in their homes; he has been reelected twice since without much difficulty.
Oakland County is both Michigan’s second largest county in terms of people and its economic powerhouse. It has 1.2 million people – more than Montana or Alaska or six other states of the union, so being county executive here is, in a sense, like being a governor.
Oakland is also symbolic of one of the Republican Party’s biggest problems. This used to be one of the most reliably Republican suburban counties anywhere – but not anymore. Educated and affluent people, especially women, in suburbs like Troy and Birmingham have little use for the religious right or Donald Trump.
George H.W. Bush was the last Republican candidate for president to win here. Hillary Clinton won here easily, and Gretchen Whitmer carried the county by 100,000 votes.
Democrats now have a majority on the Oakland County Commission, and hold all but two of the county-wide offices. But for Andy Meisner and any other Democrat, the problem is this. For many people, the name of the office is Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson.
Patterson, now 80, has dominated Oakland politics like no one before or sense. He was county prosecutor when Meisner was born. He’s been county executive for more than a quarter century. He has been credited with running an efficient, well-managed machine that provided top-notch services and spent taxpayer money wisely.
But in a very real sense, Brooks, as everyone calls him, is a living fossil. He began his political career as a lawyer for a flamboyant anti-busing group, and he began bashing the City of Detroit in general and Mayor Coleman Young in particular in terms that sounded overtly racist.
Young is long dead, and times have changed, but not Brooks; five years ago, the New Yorker published a profile of him under the headline “Drop Dead, Detroit!”
Yes, he really did say the city should be fenced off like an Indian reservation, with blankets and corn thrown in. For years, some residents have rolled their eyes, but still voted for him. But there are signs things may be changing. Three years ago, Vicki Barnett ran against him without much money or backing and held Patterson to 53 percent, his weakest showing ever. Patterson has also never fully recovered from a disastrous 2012 auto accident that left him in a coma for weeks.
But will Brooks run again?
He has sent conflicting signals. Except for a pug puppy his coworkers recently gave him, the job seems to be his life, which is a bit sad. This morning, two possible scenarios popped into my mind. Nearly half a century ago, a crusty old Republican congressman named Charles Chamberlain faced a stiff challenge from a young whippersnapper in a Lansing area district.
Chamberlain beat him – but just barely. Two years later, he graciously retired, undefeated. But there is also the example of Mayor Frank Skeffington in that great political novel, The Last Hurrah, a man who ran one too many times.
On Election Night, his practiced eye sweeps over the figures from the first scattered returns and he knows he has been beaten, a result that literally kills him. That was fiction, of course. But Brooks Patterson, like all of us, can have a say in determining his own ending.
