Whatever difficulties President Clinton's problems cause for Democrats this fall, they could be compounded by the weak candidates the party is fielding in several key states. In states with exciting, high-stakes races, voters from both parties might well turn out on Election Day. But where tickets are headed by Democratic no-names — or by candidates who actually repel voters — it could be a different story. Democratic turnout, already somewhat depressed by disenchantment with Clinton, could plummet. Republican blowouts in Senate and gubernatorial races in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania, for example, could cause Democratic voters to stay home and cost Democratic contenders farther down the ballot to lose their seats.
In Michigan, Democrats are braced for a licking in the gubernatorial contest. Any Democrat would have been an underdog against Republican Gov. John M. Engler, even though he is pugnacious and polarizing. But an uninspiring pack of Democratic hopefuls yielded up Geoffrey Fieger, best known as suicide doctor Jack Kevorkian's attorney. Fieger, an equal-opportunity bigot, once suggested that Jesus Christ was "some goofball that got nailed to a cross" and
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