Michigan Democrats Decide On State Candidates

GRAND RAPIDS - The Michigan Democratie party sallied from lts convention her e fired up for election campaigning by Sen. Thomas E. Eagleton, D-Missouri. Eagleton, dumped by Sen. George McGovern as vice presidential running mats, carne to endorse Atty. Gen. Frank J. Kelley, the Democratie challenger to U.S. Sen. Robert P. Griffin, Republican incumbent. When speéchmaking was done the many-factioned Democrats, almost 2,400 strong, settled down to piek candidates for the Michigan Supreme Court and various education posts, along with three new national committee members. As at their last state convention the Democrats avoided the busing issue by simply never getting that far in their resolutions. They also side - stepped the draft-law amnesty controversy. The only controversial resolution adopted was one supporting passage of the abortion law reform propositioa on the November ballot. Although women, the young, Chícanos and blacks carne away with at least one candidate of their own, almost the entire slate was picked at the old-style midnight caucus of party professionals and labor leaders but agreement didn't come until 7 a.m. Sunday after a long night of dispute. ) i {y The result was Dr. Charles E. Morton of Detroit, the only ineumbent black on the state Board of Education, was able to hold off a strong challenge mounted by Patricia Micklow of Marquette, who won over the youth and many women to her candidacy, but not the party leadership. The other Democratie nominee for state board is Gumecindo Salas. He captured the largest number of precinct delégate votes in the balloting and became, at 31, the f irst C h i c a n o to be nominated by the party for state-wide office. He received 1,679 votes. Thomas Roach, a Detroit attorney and co-chairman of Kelley's Senate campaign, won nomination as a University of Michigan Board of Regents candidate along with Mrs. Marjorie Lansing of Ann Arbor, a former Washtenaw County Democratie chairman who teaches at Eastern Michigan University. Thomas Downs, a Lansing attorney and long-time Democrat, who served as vice president of the Constitutional Convention, won nomination for the Michigan State University Board of Trustees. He is a U-M literary college and law school gradúate. The other MSU' trustee nomination went to Donna O'Donohue of Harbert, who graduated from MSU in June. Mrs. Nancy Waters, former assistant tb House Speaker William Ryan, was defeated in her attempt to gain an MSU trustee nation. Her husband presently is a regent of the U of M. Nominated for the Wayne State University Board of Governors were Michael inheuser, a 21-year-old student at WSU, and Kathleen Straus, a Detroiter who is presently inter-agency liaison offic.er for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. Nominated to run for the Michigan Supreme Court on the non-partisan ballot were Horace W. Gilmore, presently on the Wayne County Circuit Court bench, and Robert Evans, a judge in Detroit's Recorders Court. Judge Evans is the second black Democrats have nominated to the high court. Three persons were elected to an enlarged Democratie National Committee. Th e y are: Neil Staebler of Ann Arbor, a former national committeeman who stepped down in 1968 in favor of State Sen. Coleman Young; Sam Fishman, executive director of UAW-CAP, and Shirley Robinson of Detroit, a former aide to U.S. Rep. John Conyers. The two judges were unopposed in seeking the two nominations open because of pending retirement of incumbent justices Eugene F. Black and Paul L. Adams. B u t the convention was remarkable for the many candidates who actively sought the education post nominations, the wealth. of talent among them, and the effort and money spent trying to woo delégate votes. One of the losers - former State Sen. Roger Craig who sought nomination to the Wayne State board - said as he withdrew from contention to e n d a complicated voteswitching maneuver in which he was losing ground, that because of the high qualifications of the many contenders Michigan will be well served by those nominated here today, regardless. Also remarkable was a new method of voting in Democratie convention: All nominations were made in order before any voting at all. Then, the 19 district delegations withdrew to caucus rooms and voted their preference on all offices, and then returned to report their votss to the chair. It is an outgrowth of the political ref o r m s adopted by Democrats and marks a final end to last vestiges of the old unit rule system under which a majority carried all the votes. The new method makes control by the labor Democrats or any other single group more difficult, and the convention outcome was d u e more to UAW political savvy and shrewd bargaining, than to actual voting power. The youth, women,, the Chicanos and even the educators' caucus all learned from the process which worked well but vvas time consuming. Scheduled start was 10 a.m. and final adjournment at about 8:30 p.m. In Grand Rapids' Civic Center made it one of the longest Democratie state conventions on record; Had the convention gotten to the only resolution which mentioned busing, it would have adopted a bland statement that forced school busing is not the real political issue, but it is rather the quality of education for all - a. compromise or perspective resolution as some called it. A resolution from the First District would have called for approval of the national Democratie plank that approves busing as a tooi for better education, and one from the Twelfth District would have declared state Democratie opposition to the principie of busing, calling on the national party to re-think its stand. Both these simply were sidetracked by party leadership after discussion and argument in the resolutions committee.