Michigan Governor G. (for Gerhard) Mennen Williams is almost as durable a fixture on the state landscape as the Ford River Rouge plant. Elected by a landslide in 1948, he shrewdly built a Democratic machine on grass-roots upstate organization and the downstate power of Walter Reuther's United Automobile Workers, was re-elected for five successive terms, a national record. Last week crewcut, ruggedly handsome "Soapy" Williams, 49, wearing his original 1948 green polka-dot bow tie, got on a statewide TV network to announce that he would not run for a seventh term.
Politicos...