Could Macomb's Mark Brewer lose his Dem post after 18 years?

Could Mark Brewer’s 18-year hold on the chairmanship of the Michigan Democratic Party be slipping away?

Two columnists who follow Michigan politics – one from the left, one from the right – seem to think so.

Jack Lessenberry, in a piece written for Michigan Radio, asserts that Brewer, a longtime Clinton Township resident, is “in trouble” as the state party convention approaches.

Already the longest-serving state party chairman in the nation, Brewer’s pursuit of another 2-year term is reportedly hurting because two of his leading labor support groups, the UAW and the Teamsters, have turned against him, according to Lessenberry, whose columns tend to lean left.

“They haven’t said why, at least not openly. But they can’t be pleased that Brewer failed to get out the votes needed to pass the constitutional amendment (Prop 2 of 2012) that would have protected collective bargaining rights by putting them in the state constitution,” Lessenberry wrote.

“Nor are the unions happy that the Republicans were able to steamroll right-to-work through the lame-duck legislature in a single day.  There have been other complaints about Brewer as well.

“Too often, he is said to have discouraged the party from nominating candidates with more of an independent cast of mind. It’s an open secret he didn’t want Democrats to nominate Bridget McCormack for the Supreme Court last fall. They did anyway, she won, his two candidates lost badly, and now the new justice has no love for the party chairman.”

Brewer, who learned his bare-knuckled approach to politics while serving as a party leader in Macomb County, is clinging to Michigan Education Association support to pull him through.

But Dennis Lennox, an activist in the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, wrote in his new column that the Dems suffer from “growing tensions between gentry liberals from tony neighborhoods, trade unionists, and racial and ethnic minorities.”

In his piece for the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun, Lennox has an interesting take on who is behind the move to oust Brewer:

“Led by three-term U.S.Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Sander Levin, a senior member of Congress from Royal Oak who twice ran for governor, many of the party’s grandees are leading the coup d'état against Brewer.

“Brewer …is also actively opposed by the United Auto Workers, though the Michigan Education Association has diminished the blue-collar union’s traditional role as party kingmaker.

“With the teachers’ union part of Brewer’s forces, the stage is set for a battle royal at the Democratic State Convention later this month in Detroit.”

His expected opponent is Lon Johnson of Kalkaska, whose wife, Julianna Smoot, played a major role in President Obama’s national re-election campaign. Johnson supposedly has his eye on a 2014 run against Republican Congressman Dan Benishek, who represents the Upper Peninsula and northern Michigan in District 1. But Johnson, despite his connections to prominent Democratic donors, lost a bid last fall for a state House seat.

At the same time, Brewer continues to be dogged by accusations that he was part of a 2010 plot to create fake tea party candidates as a way to siphon votes from Republican candidates in Oakland County.