Entering the dining room of the University Club in Washington, D.C., one evening in November of 2019, former Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., spotted my wife and me as we dined with two other couples.
“I just came back from Bay City after Bob Traxler’s funeral,” Riegle said, recalling that my wife had been a state legislator from the town and former Democrat Rep. J. Bob Traxler had preceded her in the legislature, “I’m sure you’ve sent your condolences.”
But he was not finished.
The former senator asked to be introduced to our friends. To Greek journalist Katerina Sokou, Riegle said: “An honor to meet you. You grace us with your beauty.”
He then shook hands with her husband Peter Sokou and told him, “You should be proud of Katerina.”
Turning to Michael Smith, former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Riegle said: “You have served our country so well.”
To Michael’s wife, Deborah Wince Smith, a veteran of the Bush-43 and Reagan administrations, he said: “And you also have a distinguished career of service.”
As Riegle moved on, Katerina Sokou whispered: “He may be out of office but he’s never stopped campaigning!”
The news on Monday that Riegle died at age 88 evoked that six-year-old personal encounter with the campaigner par excellence.
It was said in the Flint-based 7th District of the Water Wonderland he represented in the House that “Don will go to the opening of an envelope.” He was ubiquitous, perpetually “on,” and had a sense of what worked with voters.
And it showed in his political odyssey—one in which he faced a highly personal scandal on a par with those later faced by former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump.
An instructor in business administration at Michigan State University and other colleges, Riegle, at 28, left his doctoral studies at Harvard Business School in 1966 to return home and seek the Republican nomination against Democrat Rep. John Mackie.
Mackie, who had been an elected state highway commissioner, seemed a cinch for reelection. But he had not reckoned with the hard-charging Riegle, who went to Lions and Kiwanis luncheons, attracted legions of young volunteers, and ran as a liberal Republican supporting civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War.
He upset Mackie to become the youngest Member of Congress—and someone to watch.
Richard Nixon campaigned for Riegle in 1966, and two years later, the young congressman backed him for president.
But Riegle grew apart from his president and his party over Vietnam and in 1973, he switched parties—making him the last Member of Congress to change from Republican to Democrat and win reelection.
Three years later, relatively new Democrat Riegle defeated two strong opponents to become his party’s nominee to succeed retiring Democrat Sen. Philip Hart.
The Republican nominee was Rep. Marvin Esch, a moderate whose Ann Arbor district was home to the University of Michigan and many auto workers and their families.
Throughout much of the fall, Riegle held a comfortable lead. But a barrage of hard-hitting TV commercials from his opponent, Marvin Esch, helped close the gap.
As the New York Times noted in October, Esch went from trailing Riegle by 19 points in an early September poll to just 7 points behind by early October.
The ads charged that Riegle had written no laws in his ten years in Congress, voted for school busing 18 times, and supported easier parole of criminals.
Then, on the last Sunday in October, The Detroit News ran a story that, based on covert tape recordings of their intimate moments, Riegle appeared to have had an affair with an unpaid staffer identified by the pseudonym “Dorothy.”
The recordings were from 1969, according to The Detroit News, at a time when Riegle’s marriage to his first wife was breaking up.
Among the things the congressman told “Dorothy” was that he would one day like to be president of the U.S. and later president of a university, according to The Detroit News.
Smelling political blood, Republicans went on the attack.
Former Michigan Gov. George Romney called Riegle “unstable” and someone “who can’t get along with his own wife.” Many in the GOP felt this was enough to put Esch over the top.
But Riegle was the campaigner par excellence and knew how to deal with the scandal.
He freely admitted the relationship, calling it “a foolish mistake that has been a source of great regret to me.” Supporters noted that the woman was not on his payroll at the time of their liaison.
Foreshadowing Clinton and Trump when they faced similar charges, the Democrat hit back.
Riegle denounced what he called “personal attacks, malicious distortion, innuendo and outright slander.”
He branded The Detroit News as Esch's “willing accomplice” because the newspaper had endorsed the GOP nominee.
A week after The Detroit News’ story, Riegle stepped up his counterattack with a prime-time television special devoted to the scandal.
Days before the election, Democrat leaders told the press that contributions and volunteers to get out the vote were rising. Many voters expressed anger at The Detroit News—and by association Esch—for dredging up a seven-year-old affair.
As favorite son and GOP President Gerald Ford carried Michigan’s electoral votes by 51% to 46%, Riegle won the Senate race with 53%.
He coasted to two reelections and then, amid negative publicity in 1992 surrounding his role helping controversial financier Charles Keating secure favorable treatment (the “Keating Five”), Riegle retired at age 56.
Many Michiganders in both parties believe he could have won again. But in leaving when he did, Riegle is remembered as one who never lost an election because, as more than one observer concluded, he knew how to campaign and never stopped doing it.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Click Here Now.
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