GOP told to ignore Detroit at its peril

DETROIT — Republicans here say that their national party’s dismissive attitude toward the Big Three automakers could doom the party’s hopes of capturing the governor’s mansion and Senate seat in a large blue state this November.

Republicans in Congress have belittled Detroit’s woes in recent weeks, and President Bush has been less than sympathetic to their plight, saying that they should focus on building more “relevant” vehicles.

But no slight has been more insulting here than the much-delayed meeting between Mr. Bush and the heads of Detroit’s automakers to discuss U.S. trade policies and domestic issues such as health care costs, expensive pensions and other obligations to the federally protected autoworker unions.

“The administration is wrong on this issue,” said Republican Dick DeVos, a longtime Bush supporter who has a good shot at unseating Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, who was a superstar among Democrats just two years ago. Since the summer, polls have shown the two swapping leads by a handful of points.

“The president needs to meet with the Big Three, and it must happen soon,” Mr. DeVos told reporters this week. “29,000 people in Michigan lost jobs last month.”

The state’s unemployment rate is at 7 percent, which has given Republicans unusual openings in a state dominated by Democrats. It’s been 18 years since a Republican won Michigan in a presidential election.

“I think that these are both very, very good opportunities,” Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said yesterday while touring the state. “There is no governor that is in more trouble than Jennifer Granholm. The state has bled jobs under her watch, and people want change.”

Another seat that Republicans think they can capture is that of Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the first-term Democrat who picked off a Republican incumbent six years ago. She faces a challenge from popular Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.

Like Mr. DeVos, Mr. Bouchard has made Michigan’s economic woes a central campaign theme.

“Every place I go, everybody I run into either is somebody that lost a job or knows somebody that lost a job. That’s a scary situation,” Mr. Bouchard said during a campaign stop yesterday.

Although Mr. Bouchard and Mr. DeVos appear to be reaching voters with their economic message, Republicans in Washington are confusing the issue.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, Tennessee Republican, recently offered a “new definition of the American auto industry,” which includes any foreign company that hires U.S. workers and builds cars in the U.S.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, said Detroit automakers must “change or they won’t be around. … There is a lot that our automobile manufacturers can learn in the world.”

Those remarks, along with the White House meeting that hasn’t happened, has angered a lot of people in Michigan.

Detroit News business writer Daniel Howes this week blasted “Red State Republicans,” accusing them of trying to “give Detroit a condescending geography lesson — as if the No. 1 player in China, GM, doesn’t know the business is global.”

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