Mitt Romney Demonizes Environmental Protection

Due to an editing error, Jim DiPeso's Jan. 20 blog was not posted. With the Florida primary approaching, however, it still has relevant commentary for Republican voters who want to vote green.

As you read this, the results of Saturday’s South Carolina primary are in. But I’m still pondering what forces propelled Mitt Romney to victory in last Tuesday’s Michigan primary.

Was it Mitt’s home field advantage as son of a popular Michigan governor and Motor City executive? Exit polls suggest that many voters considered Romney’s home state roots in making up their minds.

Was it economic angst in the state with America’s highest unemployment rate? No doubt, kitchen table issues were front and center.

That being said, did Romney take undue advantage of that angst by dangling extravagant promises in front of the auto industry? Did Romney win the gold medal in pandering?

That’s essentially what Associated Press analyst Ron Fournier concluded in a primary night commentary that labeled Romney’s win a “defeat for authenticity in politics.”

Without saying yea or nay to Fournier’s depressing observation, let’s focus on the auto industry for a minute and what Romney had to say about it on the campaign trail.

Thanks partly to the coincidental timing of the primary with the Detroit auto show, the Big Three’s troubles were a top issue for Romney and his two GOP rivals, John McCain and Mike Huckabee.

Many traditional automotive manufacturing jobs, McCain said, are gone for good. Times have changed, global competition is tougher, and it’s time to step up the hard work of retooling with green technologies. “That’s the future,” he said.

Economists said that McCain’s wintry blast of straight talk largely got it right. The glory days when high school graduates could count on secure, high-paying jobs and an easy ticket to the middle class, complete with a house, a boat, a dog and a cat, are gauzy memories.

Getting ahead in a global economy requires high-quality education, nimbleness, and willingness, by companies and individuals alike, to take full responsibility for their future prospects. Even then, there will be no guarantees in a world where China and India churn out scientists and engineers like popcorn.

But Romney, in so many words, called McCain a heartless old man and promised to “fight for every single good job.” As if his rhetorical flourishes could drive Toyota into the sea and bring back the 1950s.

Romney promised $20 billion in energy and engineering research programs to help automakers return to health.

If he had couched his proposal as part of a broader R&D program to accelerate adoption of technologies that build energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you could make a case for it.

But he didn’t. Instead, Romney poured old whine into new bottles. He enabled Detroit’s decades-old culture of complaint that safety, fuel efficiency, and anti-pollution standards that apply to all automakers, foreign and domestic, will be the domestic automakers’ death knell.

First, Romney called for weakening the newly strengthened motor vehicle fuel economy standards, describing them as an “anvil” that will weigh down the beleaguered automakers. Never mind those high oil prices or our unhealthy co-dependent relationships with oil-rich despots. Or that stronger standards won bipartisan support in Congress and the signature of President Bush, hardly an enemy of business.

Next, he took after McCain’s bill to adopt a cap-and-trade program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that it would cost manufacturing jobs. If that’s the case, then why did General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler join a coalition of big American companies advocating cap-and-trade legislation?

Romney could have educated voters about the hard, necessary work of building a future of advanced technologies that will help America achieve larger public purposes, and, as a spin-off benefit, help automakers get back on their feet over time. That would have been a fresh and defensible approach.

Instead, Romney took the easy way out, pitching slogans and lollipops to a fearful and fickle electorate.

Three questions remain about Mitt Romney.

What does this man truly believe?

Will he really level with the voters when the cheering stops?

And how will we be able to tell?