This Romney commercial is not effective because it tries to position him as identifying with Detroit. Few of the people hit hard by the economic downturn in Detroit would identify Romney as “one of us.” Does Romney own a house anywhere in Detroit? Does he routinely spend any time there? Doubtful, or the ad would have mentioned it. In addition, virtually everyone who reads a newspaper will remember that Romney wrote an editorial in 2008 entitled
“Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.htmlRomney has been very critical of the auto bailouts even as he has had to admit that the big three have undergone a remarkable turnaround. This ad fails to point out that it was the Bush administration that made the initial loans to General Motors and Chrysler, starting the “bailouts” that Mr. Romney derides. His criticism of the bailouts is an implicit criticism of Bush. Just this week, Bush said if he had it to do over again, he would have bailed out the car makers in the exact same manner because doing so saved tens of thousands of jobs.
Grade: D
...In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Jennifer M. Granholm, a former Democratic governor of Michigan, accused Mr. Romney of “stabbing us in the back” despite being from Michigan.
“I think he should say: ‘I’m sorry. The president was right,’ ” Ms. Granholm said. “Instead, he is justifying what he said, which turned out to be a terribly wrong piece of advice.”
Democrats also accuse Mr. Romney of trying to rewrite the history of his earlier positions.
In the first paragraph of his 2008 opinion article, Mr. Romney made an unmistakable prediction: “If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”
In fact, General Motors announced last month that it had earned $8 billion in profits in 2011. Chrysler this month reported a profit of $225 million for the fourth quarter of 2011...
