The GOP kisses the Rust Belt goodbye

Do the Republicans ever plan to win Michigan again? How about Ohio, Illinois or even Indiana?

Before the gang of GOP senators killed the $14 billion bridge loan for Chrysler and General Motors last week, they unleashed an ugly Southern snobbery about us Rust Belt rubes. And they just might have strangled their chances in here for years to come.

Let's not forget the GOP just lost the entire region to the man who will become the first African-American president, save for West Virginia. The Republicans only have one governorship here, in Indiana. Evidently, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell & Co. want to finish the job.

So they decided to bludgeon the Big Three while they were down and suffocate the United Auto Workers while they were at it.

Maybe they sincerely believe the domestic autos will be better off in bankruptcy. Maybe they expected President Bush to come to the rescue all along. Maybe they really think Honda and Toyota plants in their states would blossom if the domestics died, even though company executives warned they'd suffer because many of their suppliers would go under.

Maybe they were genuinely offended by the idea of the government messing with capitalism, although that didn't stop many of them from dumping $700 billion in the laps of Wall Street investment bankers.

But a leaked memo from the Senate GOP reveals it was all about politics and payback to the unions: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

So much for principle. It's nice to know that our friends from Dixie were willing to play Russian roulette with 3 million jobs, spark a depression in the Midwest and cost taxpayers four times as much money as we'd be out with the bridge loan. Why not? Serves the evil UAW right.

Look, the loan is unpopular nationally, so this may be a good tactic. But it is insanely poor strategy if Republicans want to stay competitive in the Rust Belt and its pool of 151 electoral votes.

You can't just write off a region and expect to be a national party. That's why Barack Obama competed hard in the South and West. It paid off when he piled up an electoral landslide and padded Democrats' margins in Congress.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis gets this. His main appeal in his quest to head the Republican National Committee is that he's only guy who knows how to get Reagan Democrats back.

Presumably, it's not by stripping them of jobs and sneering that it's their fault.

Midwest Democrats will retaliate in kind for the Big Three and are chomping at the bit to finish off Republicans in 2010 and beyond.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is already on the attack, blasting senators willing to risk a depression as "un-American" and questioning their loyalty to foreign companies at the expense of U.S. workers. It's a crude rhetorical flourish on steroids, but it's enough to earn a megaphone on "Meet the Press." That kind of red-blooded American chest-beating puts her on the offensive and makes Republicans spluttering to defend their taupe Toyota Camrys look like girly-men.

Translation: Democrats strong and patriotic. Republicans weak and love foreigners. Shamelessly jingoistic, sure, but it effectively flips the post-9/11 conventional wisdom on its head.

Meanwhile, just where are the Republicans? Yes, the entire Michigan delegation voted for the $14 billion, save for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, who claims he was recovering from surgery. But why have GOP leaders been avoiding TV cameras like the plague? You can't keep Granholm; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit; or Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak, off the news.

The notable exception is U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, co-chair of the Congressional Auto Caucus, but he's largely preferred to operate behind the scenes.

Most have opted for silent support as the Big Three teeter at the abyss. You can point to a blog post by U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, here, or an op-ed by Attorney General Mike Cox there, but there's no real face of the GOP during this crisis.

This would seem to be the perfect time for one state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, to grab the spotlight, as he'd like Cox's job and could use some positive press. Indeed, the White House has pushed him to do it. But despite backing the Big Three, he seems paralyzed about taking the lead, almost as much as he is about setting an agenda in the Legislature.

The result is a power vacuum, with Granholm often battling Mitt Romney in the national media. Republicans, do you really want the guy who doesn't care if Detroit dies, who last lived in Michigan when polyester pants were groovy, as your mouthpiece? Come on. He's not even going to merit an invite to your county Lincoln Day dinner.

This is a chance for Republicans to remake their image after two straight electoral thumpings. What's good for Michigan could be very good for the GOP -- but no one seems to have gotten that memo.

The GOP kisses the Rust Belt goodbye

Do the Republicans ever plan to win Michigan again? How about Ohio, Illinois or even Indiana?

Before the gang of GOP senators killed the $14 billion bridge loan for Chrysler and General Motors last week, they unleashed an ugly Southern snobbery about us Rust Belt rubes. And they just might have strangled their chances in here for years to come.

Let's not forget the GOP just lost the entire region to the man who will become the first African-American president, save for West Virginia. The Republicans only have one governorship here, in Indiana. Evidently, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell & Co. want to finish the job.

So they decided to bludgeon the Big Three while they were down and suffocate the United Auto Workers while they were at it.

Maybe they sincerely believe the domestic autos will be better off in bankruptcy. Maybe they expected President Bush to come to the rescue all along. Maybe they really think Honda and Toyota plants in their states would blossom if the domestics died, even though company executives warned they'd suffer because many of their suppliers would go under.

Maybe they were genuinely offended by the idea of the government messing with capitalism, although that didn't stop many of them from dumping $700 billion in the laps of Wall Street investment bankers.

But a leaked memo from the Senate GOP reveals it was all about politics and payback to the unions: "Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

So much for principle. It's nice to know that our friends from Dixie were willing to play Russian roulette with 3 million jobs, spark a depression in the Midwest and cost taxpayers four times as much money as we'd be out with the bridge loan. Why not? Serves the evil UAW right.

Look, the loan is unpopular nationally, so this may be a good tactic. But it is insanely poor strategy if Republicans want to stay competitive in the Rust Belt and its pool of 151 electoral votes.

You can't just write off a region and expect to be a national party. That's why Barack Obama competed hard in the South and West. It paid off when he piled up an electoral landslide and padded Democrats' margins in Congress.

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis gets this. His main appeal in his quest to head the Republican National Committee is that he's only guy who knows how to get Reagan Democrats back.

Presumably, it's not by stripping them of jobs and sneering that it's their fault.

Midwest Democrats will retaliate in kind for the Big Three and are chomping at the bit to finish off Republicans in 2010 and beyond.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is already on the attack, blasting senators willing to risk a depression as "un-American" and questioning their loyalty to foreign companies at the expense of U.S. workers. It's a crude rhetorical flourish on steroids, but it's enough to earn a megaphone on "Meet the Press." That kind of red-blooded American chest-beating puts her on the offensive and makes Republicans spluttering to defend their taupe Toyota Camrys look like girly-men.

Translation: Democrats strong and patriotic. Republicans weak and love foreigners. Shamelessly jingoistic, sure, but it effectively flips the post-9/11 conventional wisdom on its head.

Meanwhile, just where are the Republicans? Yes, the entire Michigan delegation voted for the $14 billion, save for U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, who claims he was recovering from surgery. But why have GOP leaders been avoiding TV cameras like the plague? You can't keep Granholm; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit; or Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak, off the news.

The notable exception is U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, co-chair of the Congressional Auto Caucus, but he's largely preferred to operate behind the scenes.

Most have opted for silent support as the Big Three teeter at the abyss. You can point to a blog post by U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Harrison Township, here, or an op-ed by Attorney General Mike Cox there, but there's no real face of the GOP during this crisis.

This would seem to be the perfect time for one state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, to grab the spotlight, as he'd like Cox's job and could use some positive press. Indeed, the White House has pushed him to do it. But despite backing the Big Three, he seems paralyzed about taking the lead, almost as much as he is about setting an agenda in the Legislature.

The result is a power vacuum, with Granholm often battling Mitt Romney in the national media. Republicans, do you really want the guy who doesn't care if Detroit dies, who last lived in Michigan when polyester pants were groovy, as your mouthpiece? Come on. He's not even going to merit an invite to your county Lincoln Day dinner.

This is a chance for Republicans to remake their image after two straight electoral thumpings. What's good for Michigan could be very good for the GOP -- but no one seems to have gotten that memo.

A death sentence for Detroit

Polls show most Americans don't want Uncle Sam to help the Big Three and I couldn't care less.

They're wrong, plain and simple, but it's not entirely their fault. The amount of misinformation floating out there on ye olde information superhighway and from TV anchors who should know better is staggering.

Certainly there's a bit of bailout fatigue. The $15 billion bridge loan that cleared the U.S. House on Wednesday is a lot of money. Senate Republicans slayed it Thursday and the deal looks dead.

This would be utterly devastating for the U.S. economy - not just Michigan's.

Now would be the perfect time for U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to be the statesman he is and end this political brinksmanship rooted in deep-seated denial of financial reality. He got hammered this fall for suspending his campaign to push for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. No one could accuse him of playing politics now; this would simply be bold action for the good of the country.

The fact is, letting just two of the three domestic automakers go bankrupt means the death of 1.8 million jobs in just the first year alone.

Still don't care? Won't affect me or my state?

Try this. Taxpayers will see $66 million swirl down the drain in two years if just two of the companies go bankrupt. Bye-bye tax revenue; hello unemployment insurance.

The cost of bankruptcy is more than four times what the autos could get from the feds, according to a report by the Anderson Economic Group. CEO Patrick Anderson is a staunch fiscal conservative, so it's striking that he's not arguing that the free market should be allowed to work here.

The reality is, the more economically prudent solution is the bridge loan. Every taxpayer in America should be treated to a copy of this report.

Unfortunately, this won't stop the Big Three bashing because it's too much fun. What we have is an axis of ignorance of far-out environmentalists and free-market Republicans.

The left whines that Detroit's gas-guzzling dinosaurs rape the planet and there's karma in letting them wheeze out their last breath. Their greedy CEOs sucking up $20 million bonuses are the living symbols of what's wrong with capitalism.

Yeah, not very powerful stuff. That's why this hasn't really gained traction and even big-time liberals like U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are willing to lend Motown a hand.

The right, however, is scoring big with its version of economic nihilism run amok. It's the unions' fault, of course, and even reputable media are selling the falsehood that workers make $70 per hour. The New Republic has nicely debunked this myth and you'll notice that conservatives in Michigan, no matter how anti-union, haven't jumped on this bandwagon.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, the Louisianan best known for using the services of the D.C. Madam, this week derided the bridge loan as being "ass-backwards" in a rambling speech that proved he knows a lot more about hookers than economics.

Southern Republicans smugly brag that their foreign plants will flourish if the domestic autos combust. Yeah, here's the problem. When auto suppliers start croaking - and they will - Honda, Volkswagen and Toyota will bleed, even more than they are now.

By the way, Japan, China and Germany haven't had any problem bailing out their automakers. Kind of an unfair disadvantage, don't you think?

Both sides agree that the Big Three got too fat and happy (true) and churned out cars people didn't want to buy (also true, but now even Toyota's sales plummeted 32 percent last month). Why? The credit crunch, which has pushed the Big Three to the brink, just as they were making the labor and technology overhauls they need to thrive.

Peel away the political spin, and that's the real cause of the current crisis.

But when economics get too complex, there's always the shorthand of blasting the Big Three titans for their nasty corporate jet habit.

There's a disingenuous double standard at work. The bridge loan pales in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars the feds have thrown at financial institutions like AIG and Citigroup. Their executives somehow escaped begging on Capitol Hill but the Big Three's humiliation (twice) provided hours of entertainment on C-SPAN.

At this point, the Big Three need a Christmas miracle. This is not a regional issue, but it's looking like Michiganders need to lead the way - and not just at the federal level.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm; Senate Majority Mike Bishop, R-Rochester; and House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, should be holding daily joint press conferences on the car crisis.

There are still some Mitten Staters who believe that Ford, GM and Chrysler are getting what they deserve and the rest of us will somehow be hunky-dory. They need to hear a strong bipartisan counterpoint to the dead-enders.

Letting the Big Three die isn't just cutting off our nose to spite our face. It would be a decapitation.