Posts Tagged michigan
Date Rape Defender Enters Governors’ Race
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on February 25, 2010
There’s a reason people cringe when election season rolls around. They know they are going to be inundated with negative political ads that try to scare them into voting for or against certain candidates. Not only will they be bombarded on television and radio, they’ll frequently answer the phone to hear a menacing voice warning if they vote for a certain candidate, they’ll be eating dog food out of a can within weeks.
Here in Michigan, these sleazy tactics have already taken hold. A group called the Michigan Civic Educational Fund has been running radio ads, billboards, sleazy websites and possibly anonymous phone calls. It appears to be an effort to boost the gubernatorial candidacy of Attorney General Mike Cox by tearing down his opponents.
Cecil D. St. Pierre, Jr.
The Michigan Civic Educational Fund was incorporated late in 2009 by a man named Cecil D. St. Pierre, Jr., a large-dollar campaign contributor to both Mike Cox’s gubernatorial campaign and his 527 campaign fund.
How did St. Pierre come into enough money to pump big bucks into the Cox campaign? Well, he defended a man convicted in the nation’s first “date rape” drug case, in which a fifteen year old girl was killed. Furthermore, St. Pierre makes his living by defending drunk drivers (he can be found at DUILawyerLocator.com), and brags on his website that he accepts cases for probation violations, domestic violence, assault and battery, criminal sexual conduct, and drug offenses.
Sounds like a real prince.
Helping St. Pierre are long-time operatives Michael Greiner and Jeff Schroder, both with extensive histories as smear merchants in Michigan. They are well known in Warren, where their handiwork in mayoral races earned a rebuke from the Detroit News as “dirty politics.”
Now they’re back doing the same thing to Mike Cox’s opponents. Does Mike Cox have anything to do with this? With serious leadership and ethical issues of his own to contend with, along with his ties to the instigators, it’s a question worth asking.
Bad Behavior Leaves Cox Open to Extortion
Geoffrey Fieger
Last year, we found out some of the nation’s most public figures were serial philanderers. It turns out Tiger Woods had more cocktail waitresses than major golf titles. ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips lost his job after he took advantage of the intern pool at his company.
This phenomenon didn’t exclude politicians. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford went missing for a couple weeks before returning from Argentina to confess his infidelity – which cost him a chance at the GOP nomination in 2012. Near-President John Edwards famously fathered a love child on the campaign trail, then pinned it on one of his aides.
While the high-profile infidelity of famous athletes surely disappoints fans, the same behavior by politicians strikes at the heart of their trustworthiness to lead and makes them vulnerable to extortion. What happens when elected officials have secrets they would prefer to keep secret?
Most often that isn’t a worry because the perpetrator’s career in public service is almost certainly over.
That’s not the case here in Michigan, where one of our state’s most famous philanderers is still taken seriously. In January, The Oakland Press named Michigan gubernatorial candidate Mike Cox one of their “Top 10 Cheaters” of the decade. In 2005, Cox held a press conference to announce that he had taken part in an extramarital affair in 2003, while serving as the state’s Attorney General. Cox only went public with the affair after trial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger allegedly threatened to expose it if Cox did not drop an investigation into Fieger’s alleged campaign finance violations.
One can only wonder what other secrets leave Mike Cox vulnerable to extortion.
Michigan Matters. Michigan deserves better.