My man Jack Lessenberry thinks Fox 2's Charlie LeDuff should be canned if it turns out that LeDuff was indeed the one who ginned up local barber Mike Dugeon to throw a monkey wrench in the Detroit mayor's race:
My first thought was that one of the other campaigns must have put the second Dugeon up to this. But it turns out that, at least according to the barber himself, Charlie LeDuff, a reporter for a local TV station in Detroit, came to his house and talked him into it, quote “to stir things up.
It is likely to do exactly that, and not in a good way. Legally a write-in vote need not spell the candidate’s name exactly right, but the voter’s intent must be clear. But with two Duggans on the ballot, and misspellings likely, this sets up a scenario where other candidates may challenge every write-in vote, delaying the outcome.
Which is bound to add further to the national perception that Detroiters are a bunch of incompetent clowns who can’t even hold an election, much less balance the books or govern themselves.
I’m still not convinced one of the other candidates isn’t behind all this. But I do think that if the reporter did anything like what the new Dugeon claims, he should be fired for unethical behavior.
Mike Dugeon
Lessenberry's Solid Point
Jack makes a strong point here, of course. Journalists have no business thrusting themselves into a story, let alone screwing around with an election.
Although I find LeDuff's schtick entertaining and informative at times, he was way out of line on this one if the reports are true.
But if this wasn't Charlie LeDuff's handiwork, if this doesn't reflect some breach of journalistic ethics, if the barber's parody of a "campaign" really is just a dirty trick being pulled by a rival of write-in candidate Mike Duggan, then it raises some interesting thoughts about how at least one candidate's camp likely thinks of many Detroit voters: That many of them are stupid.
I mean, obviously, Dugeon's parody of a campaign is intended to gum up the works of Duggan's write-in effort. And looking at it purely as a political dirty trick, I admit that I find it at least mildly funny.
But it's not nearly as funny when you consider the potential this has to invalidate a lot of Detroiters' votes (yes, sigh, for either guy). It's not quite as nearly funny when you consider the level of contempt for the intelligence of the electorate that this shows.
Why else would you think a trick like this could work unless you're counting on a significant number of voters who either can't read or spell or who have no idea who one or both of the candidates are? Unless you assume that Detroit will turn out a significant number of dumb and uninformed voters.
Staggering Sense of Contempt
The contempt this goof seems to betray, at least for some Detroiters, is staggering.
Still, despite all that, pardon me if I don't go all frothing-at-the-mouth mad.
First off, for all the cynicism his campaign suggests, Mike Dugeon is still a Detroiter and has every right to run for office.
And for all the hand-wringing over this, the Election We Must Get Right!®, I'm supremely confident that the city will survive the haircutter's doomed run, whatever troubles it stirs for other write-in candidates.
No, we may not want or need to hear from some dude who's platform includes free sandwiches. But really, what have we become if the only people we ever do want to hear from are sanitized, corporate-backed bureaucrats whose aspirations are, in truth, just as self-centered and cynical as the barber's run?
And why are so many of those who're upset acting as if Duggan's being denied something to which he is entitled? Nobody owes him the mayoralty. He's got to run the gauntlet called campaign season same as everyone else.
And if the attendant scrutiny has disadvantaged him in some ways, well, let him just cry into that giant pile of corporate campaign contributions and get over it.
Need for More Ordinary Folks
Truth is, I wish we could get more rank-and-file Detroiters involved in politics, albeit in a much more serious fashion. I wish we could get more ordinary folks to think about the sorts of issues that Dugeon, whose voting record is a blank slate, is now being forced to ponder (however briefly, however shallowly).
So what if he's a barber? We need hair dressers involved in local politics as much as we need lawyers, doctors and architects to participate. Democracy should belong to everyone, no matter how feeble or odd their voice, no matter how far out they sit on the periphery of influence.
For too long, power and aspirations to power in our city, our state and our country have belonged only to the risk-averse, proper-talking, suit-and-tie-sporting beneficiaries of big-money political patronage. It is the ordinary man and woman whom we most need to embrace their role as citizens in full.
Now, that doesn't mean Dugeon's campaign isn't clownish. Doesn't mean that LeDuff didn't cross a big line if he indeed egged this guy on.
However grating, sleazy or insincere either of them may be, Mike Duggan and Mike Dugeon both have a right to play.
And even if we dismiss the one, it shouldn't merely be because we think the other has some inherent right to win.
