Barak Obama visited a GM plant in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton visited a GM plant in Maryland. John McCain visited a Ford plant in Michigan. But who loves ya, Chrysler? Apparently nobody. The candidates have studiously ignored MoPar's plants. With Mike Huckabee barely hanging in there, maybe he should target them (you know, birds of a feather and all that). But then that leaves the Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, BMW and Mercedes plants. They're full of American voters just like the UAW-owned plants. So why isn't anyone paying any attention to them? A word to the wise: if you're supposed to represent all the people, you need represent all the people. Just pandering to those voters represented by a union may get you some votes in the short run, but it'll be a bitch when all those grandiose promises you've made return to bite you in the ass. Just sayin'.
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The politicians are not after the plant workers votes. They are after the unions $money. That’s why they don’t visit the transplants – no unions to fork over money.
The reason for candidates selective visiting of automotive plants is very simple.
The UAW aggregates and donates money to politicians. The non-union workforces in other plants do not.
There is also the “damn furriner” factor. Politicians perceive (rightly or not) that visiting a non-union foreign-owned plant will be seen by some voters as ‘elitist’ or ‘anti-union’ or ‘anti-American’.
Capitalism and democracy make (for the general population) lousy bedfellows.
By Frank Williams
February 22, 2008 – 86 Views
But then that leaves the Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Nissan, BMW and Mercedes plants. They’re full of American voters just like the UAW-owned plants.
I would just like to take a moment to remind everyone that Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, Inc., (i.e. the Normal, IL, plant that builds Galants, Eclipses, Eclipse Spyders, and Endavors) is and has been fully unionized since its Chrysler days of the 1980s.
Re: Unionized MMMA plant (nee Diamond-Star Motors)
Politicians don’t like dealing in nuanced exceptions to the rule.
It doesn’t make for good 30-second sound bites in the mainstream media.
Eric_Stepans wrote:
“Capitalism and democracy make (for the general population) lousy bedfellows.”
What democracy?!?!
What democracy?!?!
And what capitalism? The gov’t hands our money out as corporate welfare.
Going to a transplant is what you do AFTER you get elected. Before, you gotta be all about being All-American.
The transplants do not have the sheer # of voters (yet) nor are they a model of an industries glutton and greed.
I would have thought McCain would visit the transplants as the Republicans have been bought by a different corporate master than the union bought Democrats.
SCMTB wrote
“Capitalism and democracy make (for the general population) lousy bedfellows.”
What democracy?!?!
Donal Fagan :
And what capitalism? The gov’t hands our money out as corporate welfare.
PRECISELY! Mixing the two is like mixing black and white paint. You end with neither black nor white, just a shade of gray.
Thus we end up with a government where 100% of the Executive, 68% of the Senate and probably 50%+ of the House of Representatives want to grant retroactive immunity to phone companies, even though probably 70% of the American people are opposed.
America: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
The joint Toyota/GM NUMMI factory in Fremont CA is also a UAW shop.
Eric,
You got the number right, but not the position.
70% of the country does not UNDERSTAND the issue of retroactive immunity to phone companies. Absent a trustworthy press, I say we can’t get a reasonable explanation of the issue either.
Furthermore, we live in a Democratic Republic. As much as I dislike how our government is being run, I cannot say I would hope for a change from Republic to Democracy.