Democrats rev up auto bailout politics against Romney, Santorum in Michigan

President Barack Obama speaks during Labor Day celebrations September 5, 2011 outside GM's world headquarters in Detroit.

/ MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

DETROIT -- As Michigan Republicans cast ballots in the state's presidential primary on Tuesday, President Obama will headline a United Auto Workers conference in Washington to celebrate "the rescue of Detroit." Make that his rescue of Detroit.

"We didn't make the decisions on which day the UAW would hold their conference," White House principal deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said, denying the timing was political.

Still, Obama's speech will be a fitting cap to a week of Democratic efforts to damage Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, two GOP presidential contenders who opposed the auto bailout and are battling it out to win Michigan. The Democrats are particularly focused on Romney, a Michigan native who four years ago wrote a New York Times op-ed headlined "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Those words - "Romney: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" - were spelled out on 26 American-made vehicles on the roof of a parking garage overlooking the front gate of Ford Field several hours before Romney was to speak there on Friday. In a move organized by the UAW, 250 union members and allies took to the streets to protest Romney's use of a field named for a giant of the industry he opposed bailing out.

"People started to get involved once the Detroit Economic Club decided to move Romney's speech here to Ford Field," said Ellen Canale, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, who flew out to help with the protests. "It just didn't seem to sit right with Democrats."

Mark Brewer, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, told National Journal/CBS News that the problem for Republicans is much bigger than one speech at Ford Field. "For us here in Michigan, this is personal," he said. "There's not a single family here that doesn't have a family member working in the auto industry. This is our life and blood."

Asked why Democrats aren't railing as hard at Santorum, who's leading Romney in several Michigan polls, Brewer said part of the reason is that Romney "has made such a big deal out of opposing the auto rescue" and part is his background as the son of an auto industry executive. "We just feel very betrayed by someone who claims to be a son of Michigan, knows the auto industry inside and out, and when we needed him he wasn't there for us," Brewer said.

The Obama campaign is running a "Made in America" TV ad in Michigan that calls out Romney and the rest of the GOP field for opposing the help that Obama and former president George W. Bush gave to the industry. The liberal group MoveOn.org is running a similar ad in Michigan through the primary, hitting Romney for "turning his back on thousands of workers by advocating that America let Detroit go bankrupt." It's called "He'd let America fail." Steven Rattner, Obama's onetime "car czar," wrote an op-ed in Friday's New York Times saying Romney's prescription for what should have been done back in 2008 was "utter fantasy."

In his speech Friday, Romney said that as president he would "go to work to help Michigan, to help America, to help Detroit, and to make sure that we have a brighter, prosperous future for our kids and for their kids." He admired the "Detroit-made automobiles" on the street and said "Gov. [Rick] Snyder will have an ally in the White House."

Snyder is one power who supported the bailout but also went to bat for Romney. The Detroit News, which endorsed Romney, is another. "I think that's what Tuesday's all about," Brewer said. "If he's the nominee, it will come down to in the general election, are there enough people in Michigan willing to look past his opposition to the auto rescue? That's in contrast to the president, who was there for us when the auto industry needed rescue, and frankly when it wasn't popular to do so."

Following Romney's speech at Ford Field, the Obama campaign released a statement criticizing Romney for standing "in the midst of a monument to an industry he would have let go bankrupt, leading to the elimination of 1.4 million American jobs." As a bonus for Democrats, the huge arena was nearly empty and Romney remarked afterward that his wife drives "a couple of Cadillacs" - yet another reminder that he's rich. Democrats and journalists instantly took to Twitter and another chapter in Romney's campaign narrative was born.

The visuals at Obama's speech will no doubt be better. There will be 1,700 UAW leaders at the conference and it's hard to imagine they won't be cheering when Obama discusses, as Earnest said he will, "the steps we took to get our economy back on track, including saving the American auto industry, which has created approximately 200,000 new jobs since the spring of 2009."

Sophie Quinton contributed

[orthotox]

Omitted in the story: Ford alone rejected government cash and stayed in the black. So the irony here is on Romney's side after all.

[RobAla]

You are correct. GM and Chrysler were horribly mismanaged, and they should have been forced to declare bankruptcy, restructure, and come out of it like other businesses that have been terribly mismanaged. Chrysler is now owned by Fiat.

[slatep]

Whe Obama bailed out the auto industry; he SOLD it to the UAW.

Just recently; the UAW announced it was handing out large bonuses to selected members of the UAW.

What he accomplished with this sale was to force people who wish to work in the auto industry to join the Union; giving them more power to control salaries and prices.

Non-union people lost their "right to work".!!

Obama has botched this right more than any President in the past.

Our President, GB2 and Congress have done more damage to the US than all the rest of the past President's and Congresses" put together.

Now; in November 2012; these traitors to the American citizens wants us to elect or re-elect them.!

I DON'T THINK SO.!!!

In November remember your RIGHT to WRITE in the names of those you wish to see elected.

Obama's name and the current Congress are definitely NOT on my list.!!

[P0STING_AWAY]

by RobAla February 25, 2012 10:50 AM EST
Isn't free speech great? Maybe you would like to dump the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but I love our freedoms and rights. You can say whatever you like about me, but you haven't stated any facts to refute what I said. You have the freedom of speech to do so.
======================================================================
Robster:
Just because you CAN post does NOT mean that you SHOULD.
I could sing ... but I do not.
I sound terrible when I do so.
I could dance .... but I cannot do that either.

You could read and learn ... but you choose to parrot the
idiotic ideas of Rush Limpballs and the M0R0NGELICAL christian
cabal.

[RobAla]

Actually, I think a little - instead of just repeat left wing propaganda that I hear.

[P0STING_AWAY]

by RobAla February 25, 2012 10:40 AM EST
The truth of the matter is that if GM and Chrysler (now owned by Fiat) had been allowed to declare bankruptcy and had become restructured
.............................................................
===============================================================
Robster:
PLEASE STOP POSTING.
Your ideas as just the ramblings of an imbecile.

[RobAla]

Isn't free speech great? Maybe you would like to dump the First Amendment to the US Constitution, but I love our freedoms and rights. You can say whatever you like about me, but you haven't stated any facts to refute what I said. You have the freedom of speech to do so.

[RobAla]

The truth of the matter is that if GM and Chrysler (now owned by Fiat) had been allowed to declare bankruptcy and had become restructured - there would be no way $1.4 million jobs would have been lost. This is pure political bull crap coming out of a President. Where is CBS when it comes to fact checking President Obama on his wild and outlandish statements? Nowhere!

Ford didn't need the bailouts, and neither did many of the foreign auto manufacturers in the United States. GM and Chrysler were grossly mismanaged. They should have been forced to restructure without pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into them. I blame President Bush for starting the stupid bailouts and I blame President Obama for taking bailouts to outrageous levels. The bull crap coming out of President Obama's mouth is pure political nonsense.

[P0STING_AWAY]

by sirmarion-2009 February 25, 2012 8:20 AM EST
What is wrong with this picture,Here is a corporation being bailed out by the Democrats who are so against Corporate favors?Why do they still get subsidies for the chev volt,when no one wants one?
============================================================
Moron - the tax break subsidy goes to the BUYER.
So, according to YOUR pea-brain logic, if nobody wants one,
then the is NO SUBSIDY.

[RobAla]

All the $100s of billions of taxpayer funds that President Obama poured out on "businesses of his choosing" through bailouts and bogus stimulus packages were nothing more than political payback to his political supporters. Unions supported him politically. This is why President Obama went behind closed doors with union bosses to frame the stupid health care law, but he was "too busy" to meet with Republican members of Congress who were medical doctors. President Obama used $100s of billions of taxpayer funds to payback his supporters, plain and simple. It was cronyism at it's worst.

Somebody in this country needs to have a practical vision on how to turn this economy around - FOR ALL AMERICANS, NOT JUST POLITICAL SUPPORTERS. President Obama's "vision" has not been about the economy or suffering American people. President Obama is obsessed with a "vision" of "fundamentally transforming" the United States into something that it is not. I have come to the conclusion that he does not care who gets hurt in the process. I believe, that in his mind, the ends justify the means.

When asked by a reporter in 2009 what he thought about the stock market tanking, he told the reporter that he didn't watch the stock market - that to him it was like watching a political poll. The collapse of the stock market is nothing like a political poll. Millions of Americans (not just the rich, but every American with a 401K) lost large portions of their life savings and retirements. Either President Obama was completely stupid, or he simply didn't care about what was happening to millions of Americans.

Just before becoming President, Barrack Obama stated that Americans could build coal fire power plants - but his policies would make it so expensive that the power plants would go bankrupt. Does this sound like a President that is concerned with people out of work?

In an interview Barrack Obama did with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board very early in the presidential campaign, January 2008 - he said the following:

"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

Does this sound like someone who is concerned with Americans suffering under the weight of high energy costs? NO. President Obama is a radical extremist with a consuming ideology that outweighs any concern that he has for suffering Americans. He has a dreamed up personal "vision" that he wants for America, and he does not care who gets hurt - as long as he can bring his own personal vision to pass.

We need a practical leader, with proven practical solutions, to turn this nation around economically. I am SO ready for a new President.

[sirmarion-2009]

What is wrong with this picture,Here is a corporation being bailed out by the Democrats who are so against Corporate favors?Why do they still get subsidies for the chev volt,when no one wants one?

[wfw3536]

Maybe Obama should exlplain how he ripped off bond holder of these bankrupt car companies by taking away their right to have a first crack at the assets of these companies. This has been a practice for over a 100 years, but Obama had to make sure he took care of the union folks so they got a big share of these companies. Or maybe he should tell these bondholder, regular folks who had money in these bonds and lost everything. Delta and other airlines have gone through controlled bankruptcy, but this would have been the fair way of handling it. How sad.

[nearl451]

And if he let them fail, you would be excoriating him for that also.

You really ought to justmove to China.

[sirmarion-2009]

Near ,.. they said they would not let them file bankruptcy and after the unions got bailed out they filed bankruptcy anyway? So they failed at the Tax payers expense,do you pay attention?

[vkmo]

Is it a coincidence that:
A: All the letters in the word Mormon are in the word Romney
B. All the letters in "MONEY" are in his name also.. Ironic, isn't it?
C. All the letters in "MORE" are in his name as well.

Does that make Romney, a Mormon with More Money??