DETROIT – When it comes to politics, if you think that nothing could surprise you anymore … wait till you hear this one:
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may be the one political figure in Michigan suburbanites and supporters of Donald Trump most despise. Kilpatrick, a big-spending liberal known as the “hip-hop mayor,” was convicted in federal court of two dozen corruption charges including racketeering, mail fraud, tax evasion and extortion.
That was nearly seven years ago. Kilpatrick is now in federal prison in Fort Dix N.J. None of his appeals went anywhere. The soonest he could get out would be Aug.1, 2037.
That is, unless he were to get a presidential pardon.
But why in the world would President Donald Trump would even consider that? Black voters in Michigan have shown virtually no support whatever for him. Four years ago, Detroit voted 234,871 for Hillary Clinton; 7,682 for Donald Trump.
That’s about as one-sided as any election gets. But what those numbers hide is that a lot black voters, not nearly as excited as they were when President Obama won, stayed home.
The Democratic nominee got 47,000 fewer votes last time than the time before – which is why Trump won Michigan.
Now, however, there are some indications the President has lost suburban support. But what if he could do something to win over or at least neutralize black voters… like pardoning Kilpatrick?
That’s what one prominent Trump supporter, Compuware co-founder Peter Karmanos Jr., is now urging President Trump to do.
Karmanos, who has been a heavy financial donor to the Republican Party and the Trump campaign, told Detroit-area podcaster Charlie LeDuff that the mayor was the victim of a “modern-day lynching,” and that he should be released.
The businessman, who later lost control of Compuware in a corporate power struggle, openly said he thought pardoning the mayor would be a good political move, and that he had forwarded a letter to the President from Kilpatrick asking for his sentence to be commuted.
What’s more, Karmanos, who has never been known to shy away from controversy, indicated that the president ought to do so for nakedly political reasons and that the mayor, a lifelong Democrat, could then campaign for Trump in the black community.
Normally, prison authorities said, a convicted felon with Kilpatrick’s record wouldn’t be eligible for either a pardon or a commutation of his sentence, since he has served less than half his time. But President Trump has ignored such guidelines before, as when he pardoned Joe Arpaio in 2017, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, who was convicted of criminal contempt of court.
But would pardoning Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick really help him with black voters? Karen Dumas, a longtime black Detroit media personality and political figure, isn’t sure.
“That’s a good and tricky question,” she said. Many Detroiters and other black voters, she believes, do think Kilpatrick got an excessively long sentence, even if they agree he was guilty.
They might see the President as “an ally for the unjustly incarcerated,” said Dumas, who also was a top aide to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who was elected in 2009 after Kilpatrick was forced to resign the year before. But black voters “are also smart enough to recognize an attempt to be exploited.”
Herb Harris, a longtime Detroiter who has been a successful community activist both in Seattle and Detroit, said pardon or no pardon, he plans to “vote for the Democratic nominee even if it is Elmer Fudd.” Nor has he heard from any fellow black voters who say they would support Trump if he did pardon Kwame Kilpatrick.
However, he added, “it would get some contemplating it … especially with any encouraging from a pulpit that has received money,” to advise black voters to support the President.
Black ministers, despite rules about separation of church and state, are widely known to advise members of their churches how to vote, and there are often rumors that some are paid to do so.
However, there are lots of unknowns. If the Democrats nominate a moderate candidate, someone like former Vice President Joe Biden, a pardon of Kilpatrick could badly backfire with blue-collar white voters.
And it is also unclear how much support Kilpatrick still has in the black community. He last ran for mayor in 2005, when he won a close election most thought he would lose. Older and middle-class black voters had become fed up with his antics, and Kilpatrick has been out of politics now for a decade, and also did time in state prison.
Many Detroiters have indicated they now find him an embarrassment, and in the last two elections, voted for a white mayor, Mike Duggan, who had few or no ties to Kilpatrick or his team.
Until now, the number of voters who support both Donald Trump and Kwame Kilpatrick likely has been just about zero. It is true that if the President pardons the former mayor, it might help him hold on to a state that is a must-win for Democrats in the November election.
But it could also dangerously backfire.
