Michigan to Romney: Go away (CNN Op-ed)

[denem]

He was born here, he lived here. But he's not family. Not anymore.

... The truth is, many of us disowned that two-faced liar years ago. We remember how, back in 2008, Romney came home promising to do all he could to save the auto industry. And we believed him and voted for him and he won the primary here. Then, after he dropped out of the race, he wrote a New York Times op-ed that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

... He forgot about the people back home who depended on the auto industry to put food on the table, pay mortgages, send the kids to college. He greeted us like family when he needed our votes, but when he left town he treated us like strangers

... If Romney didn't think a bailout was the best way to help the state, he should have said that when he came here looking for delegates and let the people at his rallies decide if they agreed with him. Instead he pandered, then kicked dirt in our faces on his way out the door -- an all too familiar pattern with Romney.

The reason Santorum is gaining votes in Michigan isn't because he's so liked here, though his social conservative rhetoric plays well in the western side of the state. But it's because we've been burned by Romney before. He tells the people in front of him what they want to hear. But when he sets his sights on a new shiny object, he changes the script to fit his new needs.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/14/opinion/granderson-romney-michigan/index.html

The sobering truth is we have no idea what Romney would do as president, other than let his Big Money Mobsters drive a convoy of cement mixers into Washington to seal the leveraged buyout of democracy.

[Enrique]

1. I still can't believe they're about to nominate someone that wrote "Let Detroit go bankrupt"

so the GOP is all going to defend that message? Letting a great American industry go bankrupt?

[customerserviceguy]

5. I don't think they're about to nominate him

After Super Tuesday, we will see Noot with his tail between his legs, and Romney badly damaged by the massive losses he's suffered. He's going to have to mount a "Stop Santorum" drive to even stay alive to the convention.

I've long said that when one anti-Mitt emerged, Romney would be in serious trouble. Looks like I might be proven correct three weeks from tonight.

[SaintPete]

2. I've often thought that the Dems should have scheduled their convention

in Detroit. It's a union town, the city needs the revenue, and the backdrop of the auto industry recovery would play very well with the theme of the campaign.

[SpankMe]

3. The bailout may have indirectly saved Ford, too

A case has been made that if GM and Chrysler had gone out of business, many of the vendors in their supply chain would have either gone out of business with them or would have had to sharply raise prices on products they supply to others, including Ford.

These vendors assemble, manufacture, import/sell everything from screws to forged and cast parts to wire to plastics - you name it. If they sell a million fewer screws, for example, because there's no more GM and Chrysler, then they've lost half their business. They'd be forced to raise prices on screws they sell to others in order to compensate. Those others - including Ford - might have to raise their prices in response to the more expensive materials in their supply chain. More expensive cars/products means less sales and you'd see Ford starting to go down, too.

People don't see that it's a whole lot more than jobs that are affected. It's a whole, interconnected supply chain economy that's adversely affected when you let a couple of huge players go down.

Not only is the job market adversely impacted, but as these companies go out of business because of this domino effect, you lose industrial capability, engineering and labor skillsets - it really balloons on you.

The conservative case for no government bailout and letting the car companies fail is a gross oversimplification of the structural effects of all this.

[muntrv]

4. That's why Ford lobbied Congress for the loan to GM.

[Jester Messiah]

6. America to Conservatives:

Go fornicate yourselves with a rusty iron bar.