Fieger said he wants to challenge incumbent Mike Cox because of the Republican's blatant favoritism toward corporations.

"In just three short years, the Republican attorney general has put the office up for sale in a stench of cronyism with the sale and purchase of political favors," Fieger said during a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Southfield.

"In my lifetime perhaps, we have never had an attorney general who is so antagonistic to the rights of consumers and so in the pocket of the insurance industry and corporations who are destroying this state," he said.

For that reason, Fieger said that he was setting up an exploratory campaign committee for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. State Rep. Alexander Lipsey of Kalamazoo said September 1 that he would seek the Democratic nomination, which will be decided at the party's convention next summer.

Cox spokeswoman Allison Pierce said, "Today our office charged our 74th Internet child predator since Attorney General Mike Cox took office. Attorney General Cox is continuing to protect Michigan children and consumers at a record rate."

Pierce declined comment on Cox's re-election plans. Cox spokesman Stu Sandler said last month that the attorney general had every intention of running in 2006. Since then, a "Mike Cox for Attorney General 2006 Campaign" Web site has gone up asking people to donate to the campaign.

"Michigan doesn't trust Geoffrey Fieger," state Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis said in a statement. "He's a snake-oil salesman with a long history of putting himself before anything and anyone. Fieger is, and always has been, long on insults but short on actual ideas or results."

In May, Fieger raised the possibility of challenging first-term Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm in next year's primary if he thought she would lose to a Republican in the general election.

On Tuesday, he had nothing but positives for Granholm, pointing out his role in the selection of Granholm as attorney general candidate in 1998, when he ran for governor.

"I think she'll win in a landslide," Fieger said.

He said he had not discussed his candidacy with Granholm but added, "I have been urged by people at the highest level (of the party) to do this."

Fieger accused Cox of disloyalty to the governor, for whom he serves as chief lawyer. Fieger said Granholm herself loyally served Republican Gov. John Engler's legal needs, and said Democratic Attorney General Frank Kelley did the same for Republican Govs. George Romney and William Milliken.

Fieger is known for his flamboyant courtroom style and outspokenness, notably in his former role as attorney for Kevorkian. The assisted suicide advocate claimed to have attended more than 130 deaths before being convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 in the death of a Lou Gehrig's disease patient. Fieger has said he was not asked to represent Kevorkian in that case.

Fieger unexpectedly won the 1998 Democratic gubernatorial primary largely based on his popularity in Detroit. But Gov. John Engler easily beat Fieger, 62 percent to 38 percent, on the Republican's stroll to a third term.

Fieger said his personal wealth is an advantage in that it helps keep him honest, allowing him to finance his own campaigns, rather than accept donations with strings attached.

"I am not answerable to any special interest whatsoever," he said.

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