By CHRIS STIREWALT
Examiner Political Editor
General Motors rolled out its new vehicle – the Puma – today, and all anyone can say is “Our $17 billion bought what?”
The vehicle, a two wheel urban cruiser built in cooperation with Segway (it looks like a go kart crossed with a Ferris wheel car) was likely on the shelf at GM and is likely being rushed out to signal to consumers and to the company’s patrons in the White House and Congress that the company is shaking things up with smaller cars (or at least quasi cars). The request for tens of billions more will seem even more absurd, even if it is as part of a White House directed restructuring.
The likely effect will be to make Americans, already disdainful of the idea of propping up failed companies, disdain the idea even more.
During the NCAA finals last night, GM must have spent millions airing a new spot that suggested driving a GM vehicle was like wearing a rally cap (turning your baseball cap inside out) at a little league game. But you’re not rooting for the losing team, you’re rooting for the American economy. Get it? To drive the point home, the ad shows people driving GM vehicles around a town where random folks (street musicians, women shopping) had their hats turned inside out. And giving each other approving looks.
People buy cars for lots of reasons, but the idea that they will buy cars to show solidarity with a company being propped up in the face of imminent collapse seems rather far fetched. If anything, the ad underscores why people are even more reluctant now to buy GM vehicles – the fear of looking goofy. People want to look smart, sexy, cool, tough or a thousand other things when they drive. Sticking with the losing team doesn’t seem like it will rival those categories. Plus, if you want to help the domestic economy, you can just buy a Ford and not risk being the last person to get stuck with a GM.
Even if the taxpayers are providing the operating capital and are backing the company’s warranties, that ad and the Puma will undercut whatever emerging public confidence that a GM purchase might be a good idea because the company won’t be allowed to fail.
What it means politically is that the potential for a huge public backlash against GM and the billions being sluiced into it could mount.
Heaven help the administartion if it knew about the Puma and the ad campaign.
