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E. Leonard V. L. Brooks Showdown At The Oakland Corral

E. Leonard V. L. Brooks Showdown At The Oakland Corral image E. Leonard V. L. Brooks Showdown At The Oakland Corral image
Parent Issue
Day
3
Month
September
Year
1976
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
OCR Text

While most political hopefuls sweated out August 3 primary returns in air-conditioned suites, a Republican candidate who opposed incumbant Oakland County Prosecutor L. Brooks Patterson threw popcorn to ducks in Detroit's Palmer Park.
E. Leonard Howarth, a bearded, braided political freak out to "out-Patterson Patterson" by showing Brooks that "even a minor god can have the props shaken out from under him." had concluded his campaign to unseat (or at least silence) "El Brooks," the media miser.
A reputed "people's lawyer" and admitted felon and Ferndale-ite, Howarth felt Patterson's extensive use of the media to generate publicity for himself while in office was a ploy designed "to prey on the emotions of the people. "He divides and turns people against each other and exploits them for his own use," said Howarth of Patterson's penchant for calling press conferences to explain his "get tough on crime" policies.
Those policies include more arrests, more trials and more convictions, less plea-bargaining in general and the elimination of it in drug cases, and crack-downs on pornography and welfare recipients. Implementation of the policies afforded Patterson numerous opportunities to publicly announce the apprehension, and decry the existence, of such law-breakers.
Out of Patterson's efforts to ban pornography from the public eye (while keeping his own image of crime-stopper in front of it), Howarth conceded that "we must congratulate Brooks for giving us a working definition of pornography in Oakland County.
"His definition is somewhere in between cock-sucking and ass-fucking . . . we are now protected by Brooks' definition of obscenity," Howarth said.
It was with equal sincerity that Howarth called a press conference of his own a few months ago to announce his candidacy. At that conference, however, rather than talk of preventing crime, Howarth committed a crime.
Howarth passed out red flags to members of the press, along with copies of Michigan Compiled Laws Annotated, Section 750.48, which he read to the gathering: 'The use of such a flag at any such assembly, parade or demonstration shall be considered as prima facie evidence of its use as an emblem of anarchy."
Howarth committed the crime to demonstrate the insanity of outdated legal codes, codes that would ban red flags or attempt to determine what is obscene.
Highlights from other Howarth press conferences have included such iconoclastic maneuvers as his politically-taboo confession that he has had an affair with his secretary for the last nine years- his secretary, however, is also his wife.
"If elected," Howarth stated, "I plan to hire her as an aide for $98,000 a year. I figure if Elizabeth Ray is worth $14,000 a year for one night a week, my wife is worth $98,000 for seven."
He also promised a moratorium on marijuana prosecutions

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E. Leonard v. L. Brooks - Showdown at the Oakland Corral

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if elected. "Marijuana will be legalized, " he said. "The state legalizes all vices."
Prosecutor Howarth would also call for the elimination of the position of chief assistant prosecutor. His plan is to set up a committee of four assistant prosecutors, instead, and leave most decisions to them. "I'll make the decision in the event of a tie," he offered.
E. Leonard Howarth has been raising political eyebrows since the mid-sixties, when his flamboyant approach to homogenized American politics first gained attention. He has conducted unsuccessful campaigns for state representative, Ferndale mayor and county commissioner in that time.
Unfortunately, Howarth was forced out of the mayor's race when it was discovered he was too young to run, and he believes he lost the county commissioner post by the margin of 43 votes as a result of intervention by U.S. Postal Service authorities. Howarth has since filed suit against the agency, charging it tampered with the campaign materials he tried to send through the mail without the benefit of stamps.
After practicing law for the last six years in Davisburg (north of Pontiac), amidst having his car repossessed and having to steal fuel oil to keep his house warm n winter, Howarth left his utopia to run for the job of Prosecutor because "people need to laugh more," he claimed.
At least that was the response he offered when Ken Spencer, political strategist and astrologer, asked, "What do people need most?" Spencer, the former owner of Detroit's Aries occult bookstore, became Howarth's campaign manager, as well as his consulting astrologer.
So it was that Howarth entered the race, in a politically ingenuous- that is, frank and open- manner. He confessed that his carefully-cultivated media image is close to his real image, but "after you tell the truth, what do you do?" he lamented.
While many Oakland County residents may have laughed at Howarth's unorthodox actions, such as Consulting Spencer as to the most favorable day in his horoscope on which to file for office, perhaps others re-evaluated the direction of more traditional candidates, those who swear by the predictions of "pseudo-astrologers," better known as computers and pollsters.
"There is more than one way of skinning a cat," theorized Spencer, who added, "Most politicians are already corrupted, so what's left? To remain yourself, f you can be yourself . . . And that's what this man (Howarth) is- himself, totally."
Howarth's self, according to Howarth, stands "somewhere between the individual and the government. I want to contribute my energy to our system of checks and balances.
"As a lawyer in Oakland County I'm on the inside and I can see what's going on. I think of myself as a fair person, and I treat people fairly. It's easy to be 'anti,' but basically I'm a very positive person. "But Brooks Patterson's basic game is 'cock on the dung heap,'i. e., a rooster that stands and crows no matter who he wakes up, disturbs or hurts," Howarth charged in complete sincerity. "I decided I could actually succeed in shutting him up for a couple of months by opposing him in this election."
Howarth accomplished his goal. Patterson was unable to make several scheduled media appearances because Howarth refused to appear at the same time or sign a waiver that would have allowed Patterson to appear without Howarth receiving equal time later.
Patterson's reaction to all this was a non-comment: "I don't want to say anything that gives his campaign credibility."
L. Brooks Patterson, by the way, defeated E. Leonard Howarth by a 10-to-1 margin in the primary.