When President Obama launched his rescue of the American auto industry in 2009, it was hard to imagine him running campaign ads on the policy three years later. The move was risky and widely unpopular, and it wasn't at all clear that the rescue would work -- the industry teetering on the brink of collapse might have failed anyway.
Now, however, we now know the policy was a success, and Obama's re-election campaign plans to take full advantage of the president's record. Today, Chicago unveiled this new television ad, hitting the Republican field -- including Mr. "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" -- for getting the policy wrong, and crediting Obama for getting it right.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, continues to struggle with the issue. The subject came up in last night's debate, and here was his latest attempt to explain his position:
"These companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy, just like airlines have, just like other industries have. Go through a managed bankruptcy and if they go through that managed bankruptcy and shed the excessive cost that's been put on them by the UAW and by their own mismanagement, then if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provided guarantees and get them back on their feet. No way would we allow the auto industry in America to totally implode and disappear. That was my view. Go through bankruptcy. When that happens, then the market can help lift them out."
When debate moderator John King noted concerns that "there was no private capital available" in the midst of a global financial crisis, Romney dodged the question.
It's not surprising Romney was uncomfortable with the follow-up because, in reality, the lack of private capital is what makes his entire position on the auto rescue completely incoherent. Like it or not, either the government intervened in the market or the industry fell. Romney may want to pretend otherwise, but those were the choices.
As for the rest of Romney's argument, Jonathan Cohn has a good piece that not only takes the misleading position apart in detail, but raises important questions about Romney's broader judgment.
In the meantime, the former governor's general incoherence on the issue appears to be a lingering problem for his candidacy. One of Romney's top supporters in Michigan believes the presidential hopeful is wrong about the auto rescue, and conservative columnist Michael Gerson argued this week that Romney's stance is based on "a conservatism that prefers ideology to reality."
No wonder the Obama campaign is airing ads on the subject.
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this is a good start.
but, they still need to put
Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive
on bumper stickers, t-shirts and mugs
Just after the auto bailout first happened, I visited my mother's family in South Carolina. We pulled up to a gift shop in our daughter's Honda Element, and walked inside, not realizing that the sales clerk sawa us drive up.
As we walked in, the clerk, who was perhaps the owner of the store for she looked quite well-to-do, spoke to us. "Nice car you have there. At least it's not one of those Obama cars." I couldn't believe this woman went there, especially since I couldn't tear her head off in front of my husband, who is apolitical and gets furious when I talk politics. She proceeded to follow me around the store, telling me that GM was now a government-owned car company, and it was a big step into socialism. I refuted her claims, and told her to wait and see, the company would get its stock back once it was on solid grounds.
I've been so tempted to mail a big yellow envelope full of news articles about the car industry's success to this shop anonymously.
Where ever you see or hear people like that all you have to do is ask them what their favorite news channel is . It will be Faux , Guaranteed . You can see it everywhere , in letters to the editor , comments on blogs you name it . Regurgitated Faux Nooze talking points. That Faux bubble is the only place they live and they take everything they hear there as gospel. They like it they tell me because it is "fair and balanced" .
Such is the method that Murdoch and Ailes have distorted reasoned and critical thinking in this country . A pox on both of them and their organization.
I know what you mean pol, living in the most CONservative part of Texas I get to remind the teabagger supporters around here every day how 'mistaken' they were. Life is good..
What was Biden's one-liner? Detriot is alive and bin Laden is dead? Run with it, boys, run with it.
Curious: Romney is supposedly an expert on bankruptcy, turn-arounds, and feeding off the dead, yet he is clueless about the arcane details of a business that made him millions.
Apparently a Harvard education needs to be followed by some "community organizing" in order to learn how the real world works!
Plus, Obama has surrounded himself with smart experts, while Romney chose lock-step ideologues.
It's a very simple but powerful spot. If the Obama campaign is running it now in Michigan, it will be an effective counterpoint to the message and petty squabbling over on the other side, where the debate between the four has boiled down to "how many angels dance on the head of a pin" or dance on a pinhead - I'm never quite sure which Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul are talking about.
The Obama message will be powerful everywhere there are blue collar workers. He fought to save jobs and Romney was ready to kick workers to the curb. Romney is not going to be able to explain away his "let them go bankrupt" statement. People hear that and they stop listening.
You're talking a nuanced difference. Romney has called for a structured or traditional bancrupsey. Obama called for a government controlled bancrupsey in which creditors took the brunt of the hit, and unions gained unwarrented benefits. Look where GM's profits are coming from. Not the USA.
Unions gave up some benefits. I am not aware of any new benefits they got as a result of the government loans. In a bankruptcy, workers wages get priority over creditors and shareholders. The shareholders took the bigger hit along with the creditors. Liquidation would most likely not have helped the creditors. It is in the creditors interests to have a viable corporation that needs them for whatever the creditors supply. Every party involved took a hit, shareholders, creditors, bondholders, employees at every level and so on. A Chapter 11 reorg would not have saved the company and would have had the same result or worse. No one would have been better off. The government loans were the only way to bridge the company's restructuring because no one would have had that kind of cash to help and none of the banks would help.
Regardless of what Romney says, his statement "let them go bankrupt" is what people will hear and not his nuanced explanation. In fact, arguing the nuance only draws more attention to his statements. He would be better off avoiding the issue until it is necessary to explain in a presidential debate.
I am not arguing the govt should not have stepped in with cash. My argument is how they put workers above creditors. The union got a lucrative health care fund, under their control. When I studied law, admittedly many years ago, secured creditors took preference. Salaries are unsecured liabilities. They are the last paid.
Is Romney that dumb, or is trying to remember all the GOP lies stifling a man who obviously was intelligent once.
Romney is very SMART and he had proven that by being a successful businessman and he will be a successful president to turn the economy in prosperity,$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Obama lost trillions of our money (SYLANDRA)$$$$$$$$$$$E$$$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$and failed to keep his promisses "YES WE CAN" new slogan for his 2012 campaingn NO WE COULD NOT" " YOU FAILED MR THE PRESIDENT good bye. "
It's the difference between seeing a corporation and an industry as made up of the people who work there, and seeing the corporation as a "person." (Although, even in that sense, Romney's method is pretty extreme -- let the sick "person" get really, really sick, and then we'll send them a nice get-well card.)
The hands on workers care about the product. The execs care about bottom line profit. Which is the better point of view to grow this economy and give everyone a chance at the dream? My vote has always been with the workers. We are what made America great, and will again. There is a sea change coming in November. All progressive must get to work and guarantee an overwhelming victory. Then, we can really get to work.
If the producers of TRMS have now review a series of skits from SNL from the 70s with Bily Murray, Garret Morris, et al called "Women's Problems", please Google them. It is unbelievable how closely they mirror the Issa Hearings.
It isn’t enough that Romney called it wrong in his 2008 WSJ editorial, he now is revealing WHY he did it: it cuts vampire capitalists like him out of the deal, doesn’t cheat the taxpayers of their investment, and doesn’t allow him to fire autoworkers. He's still burnt up that the government interfered with the way HE makes his money: sucking corporations dry.
@MarkM In Romney world he would let the sick person die and then send the family a sympathy card.
There was a small, but non-trivial part of left Blogistan that also opposed the bailout....
Not large, but out there. On the Left.
Never saw it that way myself, but it happened.
Why is no one talking about all of the GM and Chrysler retirees who would have lost their pensions under liquidation.
stuff happens. There are no guarantees in life