He opposed the Bush-Obama bailout of Detroit’s Chrysler and General Motors, but that doesn’t mean Mitt Romney is a Ford man. Like Barack Obama and John Kerry before him, he’s a Chrysler guy.
In his new Detroit-focused ad, Romney is shown tooling around in a Chrysler 300. He recalled in the ad that going to the Detroit Auto Show was “a big deal,” and ended saying “This is personal.”
Romney’s challengers noted the car in the ad. “Didn’t Romney oppose the government buying them, and then he drives a government owned auto in his commercial? Or am I reading this wrong?” said one.
Ben LaBolt, Obama’s campaign spokesman added, “If Mitt Romney had his way, Detroit would have gone bankrupt, 1.4 million jobs would have been eliminated, and we’d be importing autos instead of producing the cars of the future right here in America.”
Romney has defended his opposition to the bailouts and a spokeswoman added that the attacks on his position are wrong. “Gov. Romney is thrilled that Chrysler and GM are building cars at a profit once again and no one is rooting for them more than Mitt Romney, a native son of Detroit. We didn’t need President Obama’s crony capitalism to get this result,” said Andrea Saul.
This week Romney also wrote an op-ed in the Detroit News in which he said:
“Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama’s management of the American economy are evident in what he did.
“Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses,Obama rewarded them.
“A labor union that had contributed millions to Democrats and his election campaign was granted an ownership share of Chrysler and a major stake in GM, two flagships of the industry.The U.S. Department of Treasury — American taxpayers — was asked to become a majority stockholder of GM. And a politically connected and ethically challenged Obama-campaign contributor, the financier Steven Rattner, was asked to preside over all this as auto czar.
“This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.”
