SALON

Monday, Oct 29, 2012 9:00 PM UTC

New Romney ad misleads on auto bailout

By

Topics: From the Wires,

NEW YORK (AP) — TITLE: “Who Will Do More?”

LENGTH: 30 seconds

AIRING: Northern Ohio markets, including Toledo and Youngstown.

KEY IMAGES: The ad opens with a car crossing a city bridge and cuts to other images of people in their cars — a young woman, a young black couple, and a baby in a booster seat.

“Who will do more to support the auto industry? Not Barack Obama,” a male narrator says, adding, “Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry.” The ad then shows video of Lee Iacocca, noting Romney had been endorsed by the longtime auto executive.

The ad then cuts to images of old cars being crushed. “Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build jeeps in China,” the narrator says. “Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.”

ANALYSIS: This ad, airing in Ohio, a major battleground state, in the campaign’s final days, is an effort by the Romney campaign to turn Obama’s decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler against the president.

Romney’s opposition to the bailout has bedeviled him in Ohio, where thousands of auto industry jobs were saved by the federal intervention. Polls show Romney consistently trailing Obama in Ohio, and a loss there would make it extremely difficult for the Republican hopeful to assemble the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

The ad, while technically accurate in its claims, is misleading.

Its assertion that Obama took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy is true. But the ad fails to mention the billions in government loans he extended to the two companies that allowed them to come out of bankruptcy and reorganize. Both companies are now profitable.

Romney also pressed for GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt, which he does not mention in this ad. He also wrote in a widely publicized New York Times column that if the companies received a government bailout, “You can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.”

It’s true that Chrysler is now largely owned by Fiat, an Italian auto company that purchased a large stake in Chrysler when it was going through its bankruptcy reorganization. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne gave Chrysler management expertise and technology that has helped the company make a comeback.

It’s also true that Chrysler is looking to produce some of its Jeep product line in China. But the company’s plans do not threaten Jeep production in the United States, as the ad seems to suggest.

The ad is more carefully worded that Romney’s claim in Ohio last week that “one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China.” Democrats cried foul, and Chrysler quickly released a statement saying it had “no intention” of shifting production from the U.S. to China. A company spokesman said Chrysler would build new plants in China to satisfy demand in Asia and elsewhere but that “U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation.”

___

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

More Beth Fouhy.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
156 points157 points | 4 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
117 points118 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
38 points39 points | 8 comments
vote
Revenge editing on Wikipedia: The unmasking of a writer who took advantage of online anonymity to pursue vendettas with other writers
13 points14 points | 3 comments
vote
In Montana, dark money brings down a judicial candidate
10 points11 points | 6 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations