Mitt Romney-- A Car Guy?

Mitt Romney blurted out a fatuous statement a few weeks ago about being "a car guy." Well... his father was. And owns lots of them (cars, not guys)-- and even an elevator for some-- but the closest he is to being a car guy is that he kind of resembles a used car salesman-- in the worst sense of the term. The most recent polling in Michigan shows him losing, 52-46%. That's not unexpected. But the polls have also shown Obama consistently ahead in Ohio-- and Romney has always known that that would be a death knell for his campaign. Tuesday they either steal Ohio or they have zero chance to win. And a lot of the explanation for why Ohio voters haven't bought into Romney has to do with cars. "Let Detroit go bankrupt," Romney's OpEd in the NY Times on November 18, 2008 plays badly in a state where so many jobs depend on the auto industry. That editorial is killing Romney's chances. and so are a slew of newspaper editorials reminding Ohio voters of it-- and of Romney's dishonest attempts to flip flop around the issue. Let's start with the editorial from the Akron Beacon yesterday, False Facts. It cuts Romney's credibility to shreds and shows why Ohio voters see him as a slimy, untrustworthy used care salesman:

The television ad launched by the Romney campaign this week about the auto rescue is accurate-- at least technically. President Obama did take General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Fiat did buy Chrysler, and Chrysler does plan to build Jeeps in China. Missing is the helpful context, the component that exposes just how misleading the Romney campaign has been in the way it has chosen to arrange its three facts.

That context has been provided in recent days by media fact-checkers, editorial pages, even executives at GM and Chrysler. Worth emphasizing is that Romney himself (at other turns in the race) has embraced the bankruptcy route, arguing it was his idea in the first place. In early 2009, the Obama White House weighed whether even to rescue Chrysler, its finances in such deep trouble. The conclusion was: Let’s proceed-- if favorable terms can be reached to make a sale to Fiat.

Chrysler will build in China, reflecting, if anything, the company gaining strength in the wake of the rescue, and more, a global firm doing the logical thing, building in markets where it sells. As the company stressed, that will not affect American operations, including Jeep production here, which has nearly tripled since the rescue.

The past three years, Chrysler has added more than 11,000 American jobs. General Motors reports that it has “brought nearly 19,000 back to work.” Remember, the Center for Automotive Research projected in November 2008 the loss of nearly 2.5 million jobs, many in Ohio, if one or more of the American automakers failed.

And that was a real prospect, GM and Chrysler running out of money, unable to secure private financing to keep operating in bankruptcy. Then, the Obama White House stepped up, the money coming as long as the automakers developed a credible plan for restructuring.

The barrage of criticism hardly caused the Romney team to flinch. It upped the ante with a radio ad suggesting the auto rescue helped China at the expense of auto workers here. The argument is as lame as its earlier contention that the bailout was all about favoring the United Auto Workers, a form of “crony capitalism.”

Actually, the auto workers joined others in getting a haircut, losing wages, benefits and job security. An independent trust fund with the job of managing the health benefits of auto worker retirees received a stake in both GM and Chrysler because the companies were broke and couldn’t meet their contractual obligation.

In other words, the trust took a risk. So did the president, and it has paid off for Ohio and other states heavily invested in making autos.

The day before, the Toledo Blade pounded Romney with a double whammy. Their editorial Auto Toxin was lethal: "In the final few days of the presidential contest, Mitt Romney evidently recognizes that his opposition to the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler is costing him voter support he needs in Ohio and Michigan. So the Republican nominee is conducting an exercise in deception about auto-industry issues that is remarkable even by the standards of his campaign." The Blade editors go on to explain to their readers that Romney's claims, simply put, rest on a tissue of boldfaced and purposeful lies. A business news story in the same paper the same day nails the point home, with hard facts about how well Jeep is doing in Toledo. (Of course, Romney-owned companies made a habit-- and still are today-- of shipping jobs to China and other low-wage hellholes even when companies were doing well, so Romney and his sleazy plutocratic partners could fatten their already bulging wallets regardless of what it did to working families-- or the American economy.

Chrysler, which owns Jeep and in which the Italian automaker Fiat has a majority stake, quickly denied the report. A company spokesman said Mr. Romney’s rhetorical leap “would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” But the Romney campaign launched an ad in Ohio that claimed that President Obama, who presided over the auto bailout, “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.”

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne removed all doubt about his company’s intentions this week in an email to employees: “Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,” he said. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different"

He acknowledged that Chrysler intends “to return Jeep production to China, the world’s largest auto market, in order to satisfy local market demand, which would not otherwise be accessible.” The company also wants to avoid heavy import duties. But that’s a long way from Mr. Romney’s insinuation that the automaker is shipping jobs from Toledo to China.

Mr. Marchionne noted that Chrysler is investing $500 million in its Toledo assembly complex and plans to add 1,100 jobs there by next year, largely to build a successor to the Jeep Liberty sport-utility vehicle. He vowed “that the iconic Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio, plant, will never see full production outside the United States.”

And Romney's been lying about General Motors as well-- the same lies to the same audiences and executives in that company-- who have also tried to stay out of politics-- are steaming mad at the Republicans now. GM, which has hired 4,500 new hourly workers and thousands more new salaried workers at plants across the country since being bailed out by Obama, finally spoke out about Romney's calumny: “At this stage, we're looking at Hubble telescope-length distances between campaign ads and reality.” GM spokesman Greg Martin said. “GM's creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

Turns out, of course, it isn't just auto executives who are angry about Romney's campaign of lies and deception. Greg Palast reported Thursday on how poorly that crap is going over with the UAW. They're going to sue him-- for profiteering from the auto bailout!

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon (November 1) he will be charged by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and other public interest groups with violating the federal ethics in government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bailout.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)  have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue. It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”

“While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation’s most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others,” King added.

The Romneys' gigantic windfall was hidden inside an offshore corporation inside a limited partnership inside a trust which both concealed the gain and reduces taxes on it.

...According to ethics law expert Dr. Craig Holman of Public Citizen-- who serves as an advisor on the charge-- Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust.  An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which presidential action can have little effect.  By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment. In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bailout fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain.  Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romney's tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi-- and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job-- 25,000-- and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

What about President Obama? Are you wondering if he's finally calling Romney on his bullshit. He sure is! He was in Ohio yesterday... and the glovers came off. About time!

[C]hanging the facts when they’re inconvenient to your campaign-– well, that’s definitely not change. But that’s exactly what Governor Romney has been doing these last few weeks. Right here in Ohio, you’ve folks who work at the Jeep plant who have been calling their employers, worried, asking if their jobs were being shipped to China. And the reason they’re been making these calls is because Governor Romney has been running an ad that says so. Except it’s not true. Everyone knows it’s not true. The car companies themselves have told Governor Romney to knock it off. GM said, “we think creating jobs in the United States… should be a source of bipartisan pride.” And I couldn’t agree more.

   And I understand that Governor Romney has had a tough time here in Ohio because he was against saving the auto industry. And it’s hard to run away from that position when you’re on videotape saying the words “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” And I know we’re close to an election but this isn’t a game. These are people’s jobs. These are people’s lives. These car companies are put a lot of effort to make great product but also to make sure everybody in America knows how committed they are to making cars here in America. And so you don’t scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That’s not what being President is all about. That’s not leadership.

When I first made the decision to rescue the auto industry, I knew it wasn’t popular. Despite the fact that one out of eight jobs in Ohio are connected to the auto industry in someway, it wasn’t even popular in Ohio. But I also knew it was the right thing to do. I knew betting on American workers was the right thing to do. Betting on American ingenuity and know how was right thing to do. That bet paid off. It paid off in Lordstown, where GM is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their auto plant. It paid off in Toledo, where Chrysler is adding more than 1,000 new jobs on a second shift-- not in China, right here in Ohio. Right here in the United States of America.

When Democrats brought up the auto bailout it passed the then Democratically-controlled House 237-170. All the Republican leaders-- Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, Sessions-- and many who find themselves in tight electoral battles today-- like Buck McKeon (R-CA), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Ed Royce (R-CA), Todd Akin (R-MO), Steve King (R-IA), Connie Mack (R-FL), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Dan Lungren (R-CA), Brian Bilbray (R-CA), John Kline (R-MN), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC) and Heather Wilson (R-NM)-- voted with Romney against bailing out the auto industry. They were on the wrong side of history. Every one of them should be defeated at the polls Tuesday.

   I think it's almost funny that the 32 Republicans who did the right thing and voted with the Democrats against their own leadership are 100% silent on the issue now. You don't hear Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, Dave Camp, Peter King, Joe Barton, Don Young or Mike Rogers bragging today that they weren't with their sociopathic leadership on this one. They're all laying low-- even though they made the right decision for a change.