Former MI Senator Bob Griffin (R) died yesterday at age 91, he was defeated by Carl Levin in 1978. We’ve won only 1 Senate race in MI since, 1994.
Alas, it was Sen. Griffin’s dithering that needlessly cost us his seat in 1978. He was just short of 55, but had already been in Congress since he was 33 (when he beat a lady Republican who was 36 years older than he) and was 42 when he was elevated to the Senate via appointment (though was already running for it).
He scored a “hugh” victory in stopping my fellow Tennessean Abe Fortas from getting elevated to Chief Justice, thwarting the plans of both LBJ and Earl Warren. Barone said it was almost a single-handed accomplishment. For the task, he was elevated to Republican Whip after just 3 years in that body (although this came because of Leader Everett Dirksen’s untimely death in the Summer of 1969. With ex-Sen. Tom Kuchel’s primary defeat in 1968, fellow liberal Hugh Scott of PA replaced him as Whip, but got thrust into the top job after barely 8 months in that position).
Not mentioned on his Wikipedia bio is more telling. His ultimate goal was to land on the Supreme Court. I think he expected to get President Ford to appoint him to Bill Douglas’s seat in 1975 (or at the very least, whichever vacancy next came open when Ford was reelected — of course, we know now that there wouldn’t be, since Carter mercifully never got to make an appointment, although Stevens might as well have been a Carterite).
Particularly galling to him was that after his yeoman work, he expected to succeed Scott as Minority Leader in 1977, but instead he lost out to my more telegenic Senator, Howard Baker. He apparently was bitterly unhappy and simply wanted to retire. His biggest problem in 1977 is that he didn’t much bother with showing up for work. He missed votes, a lot of votes.
At some point, pollsters for the party crunched the numbers and told Griffin that he was the only one who could hold the seat for them in 1978 (the party was on the heels of just having come up short for Phil Hart’s open seat in 1976). Apparently, Rep. Philip Ruppe was set to run instead but dropped his plans (he did run in 1982 against Riegle and lost) when Griffin changed his mind. He might’ve prevailed, but there was some latent hostility towards him amongst MI Republicans, but what ultimately sunk him by the execrable Carl Levin was that Levin successfully exploited the fact that Griffin missed all those votes (making it look like he was collecting a paycheck and not showing up for work), and that really didn’t go over well with blue-collar voters.
It is truly unfortunate that missing those votes cost us that seat. Had he not done so, Levin might never have made it to the Senate. Griffin then could’ve retired in 1985 (and Reagan could’ve named him to SCOTUS) and been succeeded by another Republican, presumably Astronaut Jack Lousma (who almost beat freshman Levin). He did achieve a seat on the MI Supremes in 1987 and served until retiring in 1995, but that was likely only a consolation prize for SCOTUS ambitions. RIP, nonetheless to Justice Griffin.