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Valley Dems rebuke Romney for anti-bailout stand
By Karl Henkel
WARREN
Mahoning Valley officials and Democratic state legislators said Thursday’s verbal thrashing of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasn’t about him personally.
It was about anyone who speaks out against the auto loans and bailouts of 2008.
The group, which included Sen. Capri Cafaro of Liberty, D-32nd, and GM Lordstown’s United Auto Workers Presidents Jim Graham and Dave Green, lambasted the former Massa-chusetts governor over remarks he made about the auto-industry bailout during Tuesday’s GOP debate.
Graham brushed off Romney’s presidential candidacy chances as a reason for the Democratic session.
“A guy that makes pizza [Herman Cain, former president and CEO of Godfather’s Pizza] is ahead of him by nine points” in the polls, Graham said. “These are working-class jobs under attack.”
Romney, who until recently was the frontrunner in the eight-candidate field, answered a question about the Troubled Asset Relief Program by partially denouncing the auto bailouts that followed.
“Should they have used the funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler?” Romney said. “No, that was the wrong source for that funding.”
Local leaders who have praised the GM Lordstown plant, which employs 4,500, took exception to Romney’s statements.
“The auto bailout wasn’t a bailout — it was an investment,” said Cafaro, who was joined by state Reps. Sean O’Brien of Brookfield, D-65th, Ron Gerberry of Austintown, D-59th, and Tom Letson of Warren, D-64th.
Five of the six Trumbull County and Mahoning County commissioners also expressed their displeasure with Romney’s remarks.
Among the many sticking points with Romney is that he is the son of George Romney, the former governor of Michigan, home to all three U.S. automakers.
Graham said Romney is “flip-flopping like a flounder on a boat,” and Green said it was “unconscionable” that voters support Romney.
Dave Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, said county Democrats see Romney as the biggest threat to President Barack Obama’s re-election chances in the region and said they will “push back” against anyone who does not respect the value of the auto loans and bailouts.
GM has since repaid all of its loans to the federal government.
“This plant is the centerpiece and linchpin of our economy,” Betras said.