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GM to Romney: Quit telling it like it isn't

October 31, 2012|By Karin Klein
  • General Motors, maker of Chevrolet cars, told Mitt Romney to back off from misstatements about job creation.
General Motors, maker of Chevrolet cars, told Mitt Romney to back off from… (Daniel Acker / Bloomberg )

Mitt Romney earned four Pinocchios -- the Washington Post ranking indicating the worst of the misleading campaign statements -- and a "Pants on Fire" label from Politifact for his comment on how he'd be a bigger hero to the nation's car industry than President Obama has been.

Specifically, the GOP hopeful contended that Obama's successful bailout of GM and Chrysler had led to jobs being shifted from the United States to overseas. In fact, any overseas jobs are additional jobs created, not jobs taken from this country, and are an indication of the companies' success in selling internationally, which can only be good for this country.

OK, another day, another less-than-accurate campaign announcement. Except that these were so off base that the corporations got involved to publicly smack down Romney.

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A spokesman for GM went so far as to say: “The ad is cynical campaign politics at its worst.”

Not the sort of thing you usually hear a giant corporation saying about a presidential campaign, and especially about a Republican candidate.

But then, the Obama campaign also was told to back off from using an outside group as fodder for his campaign. The president had been targeting Romney for his stated intention to cut funding for public television, including "Sesame Street." Obama's ads touted the president's unwavering support for Big Bird -- until the Sesame Workshop asked to be left out of the campaign.

But at least it didn't claim that Oscar the Grouch had been slandered.


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