Mitt Romney:

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.

Tim Pawlenty called the bailout “misguided,” and Newt Gingrich called it “irresponsible and dangerous.” Jon Huntsman, Huckabee, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul also opposed the plan.

Senator Corker was among the worst. Last year he tried to take credit for the policy he opposed:

Last week, GM announced that it would rehire 483 laid-off workers at its massive Spring Hill, Tenn., plant. At a ceremony to celebrate the news on Friday, Tennessee politicians flocked to get a piece of the happy action, including Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, along with Rep. Marsha Blackburn -- all three of whom voted against the auto bailout. The UAW employees in attendance booed lustily, saving their strongest scorn for Corker, who made no friends in union ranks two years ago when he argued that no federal aid should go to American car companies until and unless worker wages and benefits were reduced to levels "competitive" with foreign labor.

Salon, Sept. 20, 2010: Bob Corker's chickens come home to roost

This will be a big part of the 2012 election:

In the next few months, the U.S. Treasury will finish selling its shares in General Motors, effectively ending the biggest piece of the $85 billion auto-industry bailout that inflamed fiscal conservatives and helped fuel the rise of the tea party movement. In the end, Uncle Sam will probably lose several billion dollars on its stake in GM and will have bits of Chrysler and Ally Financial, GM’s former financing arm, left to unload. But the bulk of the bailout will wrap up six years ahead of schedule after forestalling a collapse many experts say could have cost millions of jobs and driven the nation into a longer, deeper and more painful recession. President Barack Obama has already made it clear he will use the automotive rescue, begun under President George W. Bush in 2008, as one of the central pillars of his reelection campaign, especially in the critical battlegrounds of the Midwest.



Barack Obama sees auto rescue as 2012 plank

Last year, on July 31, 2010:

The choice was a hard one during "a vicious economic crisis" that brought "an industry that's been the symbol of our manufacturing might for a century to the brink of collapse," Obama said during his weekly radio and Internet address. Despite what he called "the 'just say no' crowd in Washington who argued that standing by the auto industry would guarantee failure," the president said, as a result of the government's investment "our auto industry has added 55,000 jobs -- the strongest period of job growth in more than 10 years. For the first time since 2004, all three American automakers are operating at a profit."

Read more: http://www.upi.com/...

Even more jobs now. For example, "General Motors adding 240 new jobs at Toledo transmission plant, 4,200 in region."

5/10/11:

General Motors announced Tuesday a new 8-speed transmission will be built at the GM powertrain plant in Toledo, adding hundreds of new jobs. According to GM, $204 million will be invested in the plant to produce the new transmission.



http://www.newsnet5.com/...

Also this month:

General Motors Breaks Ground For New Electric Motor Plant In White Marsh The plant being built in White Marsh will be the first of its kind in the U.S. as GM banks on the future of electric car technology. Thanks to soaring gas prices, GM’s new electric hybrid Chevy Volt is already wildly popular, with drivers on long waiting lists to get them. Electric and electric-hybrid technology like the Volt are considered by many in the government and in the auto industry as the answer to skyrocketing gas prices and the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/...

There is clear evidence here. On one side, Romney and the other Republicans wanted to let the auto industry die. They did not believe in America or Americans. Their way forward is that of a declining United States in which there are a few rich and no middle class.

They are the "Just Say No To America" crowd.

Yes, we can.

Look at the automobile bailout. We did.