© 2024 MICHIGAN PUBLIC
91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit 104.1 Grand Rapids 91.3 Port Huron 89.7 Lansing 91.1 Flint
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Democrats seize on Romney Volt comment

Mitt Romney
Associated Press
Mitt Romney

Michigan native and GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is drawing fire from Michigan Democrats for remarks he made on a radio program this week.

At the very end of a radio interview Romney called the Chevy Volt “an idea whose time has not come.”

There was little context for the remark, but Democrats seized on it. They say it’s part of a pattern of Romney “rooting for the US auto industry to fail.”

Romney has been critical of how President Obama handled GM and Chrysler’s bankruptcies, and of loans the government made to some smaller electric vehicle makers.

The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, where GM builds Chevy Volts, is in Congressman Hansen Clarke’s district. Clarke calls Romney’s remarks “ridiculous.”

“We want to promote innovation like the Chevy Volt," Clarke says, nothing the U.S. government has a history of investing in new technology. "We don’t want to look at ways to criticize it and stifle it.”

Romney’s campaign says that’s not how the remark was intended, and there’s “no bigger champion for Detroit” than Romney.

In its first year on the market, the Volt has seen slow sales and been dogged by safety concerns.

 

Sarah Cwiek joined Michigan Public in October 2009. As our Detroit reporter, she is helping us expand our coverage of the economy, politics, and culture in and around the city of Detroit.
Related Content