Engler Support Backfires

Maybe Gov. John Engler should have picked a less toxic material when he boasted he was “solid asbestos” for Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

Engler made the claim in December, when Bush was leading GOP rival John McCain two-to-one in Michigan polls.

Two months later, the firewall he promised to provide the Texas governor offered little protection for Bush in Tuesday's GOP presidential primary.

If nothing else, Bush's loss provided a humbling lesson in how Michigan's quirky voters can trip up even someone with Engler's nearly 30 years' experience in state politics.

“I didn't think we needed to go on the air and confront the McCain campaign on their appeal to Democrats,” Engler told CNN. “I wouldn't suggest for a minute that they didn't play by the rules. They used them a little bit differently, and shame on me for not being smart enough to figure that out.”

Engler accused McCain of using Democrats to keep his campaign alive.

“We've never seen a candidate like John McCain who went out to rent Democrats for a day and get himself a nomination,” Engler told CNN. “John McCain isn't party building. He's party borrowing, and there's a big difference.”

Peter DeMarco, spokesman for McCain's Michigan campaign, said McCain didn't do anything wrong by asking Democrats and independents to vote in Michigan's open primary.

“We played by the rules and withstood millions of dollars of negative advertising by the Bush campaign and third-party special interests who were trying to discourage voter turnout by spreading lies and untruths about John McCain,” DeMarco said.

An unusually high number of Democras voted in the GOP primary, accounting for nearly two of every 10 votes cast. Many told reporters they preferred the U.S. senator from Arizona. But some said they had backed McCain as a way to punish Engler for policies they don't like.

That was especially true in Detroit, where state Rep. Lamar Lemmons III handed out flyers urging residents to vote for McCain “to give Governor Engler and the state's Republicans a needed political whipping for their continued disrespect and interference in the affairs of Detroit.”

But Engler also has trouble among independents and even with some in his own party. Michigan Republican Chairwoman Betsy DeVos quit earlier this month after complaining that Engler wanted a follower in the post, not a leader.

And the governor has taken a number of controversial steps during his nine years as chief executive. He acknowledged last week that Bush gets “all of my enemies and half of my friends.”

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It proved to be a dangerous combination.

In an exit poll conducted by Voter News Service, roughly two-thirds of those saying Engler's support for Bush affected their vote a great deal voted for McCain sure sign of a backlash.

For Nancy Rayos, 28, a Republican homemaker from Warren, Engler's boast that he would win Michigan for Bush was enough to make her vote for McCain.

“He should never go making promises for the rest of us,” she said of Engler, in an interview separate from the exit poll.

Stacey Golick, a newly registered 18-year-old voter from Livonia, said she planned to vote for McCain all along. But she resented Engler's active campaigning for Bush.

“I felt it was wrong for him to say he was givinthe Republican vote to Bush,” she said at a McCain victory party Tuesday night in the Detroit suburb of Novi. “He angered me.”

If Bush wins the GOP nomination, Engler has a chance to redeem himself in the fall.

“It's only the first chapter in on ongoing saga. If Bush ends up being the nominee and ends up carrying Michigan, I think people will say this ended up being an embarrassing stumble but wasn't fatal,” said Bill Ballenger, editor of “Inside Michigan Politics.”

As Engler noted with a wry laugh, “Hindsight is always perfect.”