Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

"My florist bill for funerals of dead Democrats alone runs about $800 a year," Neil Staebler, a soft-spoken man with a scraggly mustache and baggy pants, once said. But Staebler's real concern is for live Democrats--and he has found enough to make Michigan a Democratic stronghold. As Democratic state chairman, Staebler designed, built and oiled the machine that kept "Soapy" Williams in the Governor's mansion from 1949 to 1960, and that elected Lieutenant Governor John Swainson, 36, as his successor. For weeks Staebler has been hunting for a strong Democratic candidate to run for Michigan's newly created at-large congressional seat. Last week he found his man--by the simple process of looking in his own mirror.

Staebler, 56, still blushes at the memory of his only other foray as a political candidate. In 1934, he ran for alderman in Ann Arbor on the Socialist ticket--and was routed. "I took socialism seriously for a couple of years during the bottom of the Depression," says Staebler, who is a millionaire on the strength of family interests in lumber and coal and his own ventures into real estate. "I have since discovered it was a mistake."

In running for the at-large congressional seat (which will stay that way unless and until the deadlocked Michigan legislature gets around to setting up a regular district), Staebler hopes to strengthen the entire Democratic state ticket by wooing independent voters, thereby help Swainson beat Republican Gubernatorial Hopeful George Romney. Staebler's likely opponent will be Republican Alvin Bentley, 43, a conservative multimillionaire (auto bodies), whose chief claim to fame is that he was wounded in the chest when a band of Puerto Ricans shot up the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954. After years of plotting strategy for others, Staebler can hardly wait to get out on the hustings against Bentley. Says a friend: "Neil is as excited about running for office as a child with a new toy."

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