Michigan’s shame

It's pretty much accepted that no Democratic nominee for president can win without carrying Michigan. No Republican, on the other hand, can win without taking Ohio.

The GOP is going to have its share of problems in both states this fall, thanks in large part to their presidential candidates’ stubborn ideological insistence that despite all evidence, Washington’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry was a bad thing. But Democrats in Michigan have a mess on their hands that could threaten their entire ticket.

Wayne County, the state’s largest county, has a government scandal of almost unbelievable proportions that continues to unfold. It began last fall, when it was learned that the county’s director of development, Turkia Mullen, had been chosen to run the local airport authority over a number of candidates with airport experience, while she had none.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Ms. Mullen got a “severance agreement” of $200,000 to move from one job to another, while lesser county workers were laid off or had their benefits slashed. Since then, an FBI probe has been launched, and the revelations have kept coming.

Last week, Wayne County’s former chief information officer was arrested by federal agents and charged with extortion, theft, and obstruction of justice. One of his assistants was charged as well. Then the county’s top two personnel officers suddenly quit.

You might think the county’s top elected official, County Executive Robert Ficano, would do the right thing and resign. But he is stubbornly refusing to go.

“There have been no allegations of wrongdoing made against me,” he said. Legally, that’s true. But even if he is totally clean personally, Mr. Ficano is guilty of a massive failure to mind the store.

Bernard Parker, a county commissioner and fellow Democrat, is calling on Mr. Ficano to go. “I would just hope he would put Wayne County above himself and step down,” he said.

That would make sense if the executive cared more about the county than himself, but he shows no signs of doing so, That should make other Democrats nervous, since the Ficano administration has become a poster child for Republican attacks on government corruption.

The best advice for Mr. Ficano may be what the English military and political leader Oliver Cromwell said a few centuries ago: “You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing … in the name of God, go!”