Candidate Romney during a less controversial visit to Michigan - when he won the state's '08 GOP primary.
In 2008, presidential candidate Mitt Romney got a strong boost from his home state of Michigan, winning his only primary victory in a state once governed by his father, George Romney, who was also the one-time head of American Motors.
Things may be a little different this time as the younger Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, once again throws his hat in the ring.
Making a series of early campaign stops in the heartland of the domestic auto industry, the candidate is being dogged by protestors who recall that despite his expressed support for the slumping auto industry, in 2008, Romney went on to argue against a federal rescue of bankrupt General Motors and Chrysler, insisting he believed in “the process of law,” rather than bailouts.
An op-ed he authored in the New York Times, prior to the election, was titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
More than 100 auto workers gathered outside a restaurant in the Motor City suburb of Livonia, on Thursday, some carrying signs with the name, “Mitt” circled, with a line through it.
Romney largely ignored the protestors outside, telling restaurant patrons that “bailouts are not the answer,” and insisting that if GM and Chrysler had gone through a regular bankruptcy process the country would have said $17 billion of taxpayer money.
“It would have been best not to have had the president and the government put their hands on the bankruptcy process and basically give the ownership of the enterprise, General Motors in this case, to the UAW,” he said.
Last Friday, President Obama passed just south of Michigan, visiting a Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio, and proclaiming the bailout a success – a position echoed by the increasingly successful maker’s CEO Sergio Marchionne.
On the other hand, Romney is traveling the mitten-shaped state pointing to Michigan’s 10.2% unemployment rate and insisting his credentials as a successful businessman would allow him to fix the economy and put people back to work.
“It breaks my heart to see how many years people have had a tough time in this state, how many jobs have been lost,” Romney said during one of his Michigan stops.
Political analysts note that Romney is trying to move to a more conservative position, as he did in 2008, hoping to overcome questions about his own actions while a governor, notably his support for a statewide medical program that was hailed as a model for the federal health care overhaul.
Romney’s opposition to a bailout isn’t entirely lost on the Republican portion of the Michigan population, which includes a strong conservative base that has elected Republicans as two of the three most recent governors. But there are plenty in the Michigan GOP ranks who depended on the bailout, some openly praising President Obama for his controversial decision to invest billions in the two makers.
The last Democratic governor, Jennifer Granholm, who left office in January, took aim at one-time Michigan resident Romney, suggesting that even Republicans should be wary.
“I think that people who want to donate (to Romney) should be looking at, when the auto industry was asking for a donation, what he was saying,” Granholm said during an interview on MSNBC earlier in the week. “I think they should give him the same answer.”
It amazes me the gall Romney has to come and claim credit for the bankruptcy of the automakers. The man supposedly took a philosophical stand against government assistance for the bankruptcy, instead saying that he thought that the private market should have funded those bankruptcies. Really? With what money? Lest we forget, these bankruptcies were set to take place smack in the middle of the worst economic disaster in 80 years, there was no “private DIP financing” to be had. The only game in town with pockets deep enough to fund such a bankruptcy process was the US government; every bank was frozen in lending because of the subprime mortgage market crisis. And sorry Mitt, you can’t even claim the bankruptcy idea as your own–I credit this to Sen. Bob Corker of TN, who frankly had the foresight to fight for measures that would not just bail out the automakers, but which would REPAIR them.
It’s ironic for so many reasons, Aaron, but the claim that he coulda-woulda done it better just doesn’t seem likely to fly here. And yet it seems like Mitt does not believe his campaign can succeed without scoring big in his home state. As with his record on health care, past positions on energy and global warming, Romney Will be running largely against himself.
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheDetroitBureau.com
““It would have been best not to have had the president and the government put their hands on the bankruptcy process and basically give the ownership of the enterprise, General Motors in this case, to the UAW,” he said.”
I admit to bias, as I am a retired GM/UAW person, but still, while the UAW VEBA is a large minority piece of the GM puzzle, this statement just verges on being a lie. I realize that the UAW members got a good deal, but doggone it, the guy we supported for President won, and we should have received something for being on the winning side, just as Republican governors in the Midwest are rewarding their business allies after winning in 2010.
You know, I’m not the biggest Obama supporter, even though I would vote for him again, given my choices on the Republican side and the fact that it is so crystal clear to me that any Republican is going to try, just as the Midwestern governors, to roll back any gains labor made since the 2008 election, and to absolutely deep-six collective bargaining. I’m from Indiana, not Detroit, but when Romney wrote the article “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” he might as well have entitled the article “Let Detroit Three Autoworkers in Indiana Starve” because I knew then that he was in the company of Corker and Shelby, and he was literally my enemy. I could never vote for the guy, or anyone in a party that would run him for President. Never.