/ 13 January 2008

Romney, McCain debate jobs in depressed Michigan

Republican rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain clashed on Saturday over how to revive the depressed economy of Michigan, as the most open United States presidential race in decades approached its next big test.

Michigan-born Romney needs to win the Republican primary here on Tuesday after losing Iowa to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and New Hampshire to McCain, an Arizona senator. One new poll showed Romney ahead by five percentage points and another had McCain in front by a single point, both results within the statistical margin of error.

The Detroit News/WXYZ Action News poll showed McCain leading Romney, 27% to 26% while Huckabee polled 19%. The Detroit Free Press-Local 4 survey found Romney ahead by 27% to McCain’s 22%, with Huckabee on 16%.

A win in Michigan for Romney, McCain or Huckabee would offer momentum in the wide-open Republican race ahead of the South Carolina primary on January 19, the next of the state-by-state contests to choose candidates for November’s election to determine President George Bush’s successor.

While Republicans battled in Michigan, the next big test of Democrats comes in Nevada, which holds presidential caucuses next Saturday. Democratic front-runners New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama are fighting hard there, hoping a win will help propel them a step closer to the Democratic nomination.

In Michigan, Romney went to a General Motors plant that just announced it was laying off 200 workers.

”It’s inexcusable to me to see these jobs going away again and again and again,” Romney said outside the plant, arguing for more investment in science and technology research.

Democrats are not campaigning in Michigan, which offended the national party by advancing the date of thE primary without its approval.

In both parties, the focus of the campaign has shifted from the war in Iraq to pocketbook issues like falling home prices, soaring oil prices, health care and unemployment as the US economy edged closer to a recession.

”The economy is not working. It’s not working for everybody,” Clinton said in Nevada. ”A lot of people are losing their homes because of fraudulent, misleading predatory lending practices.”

The Democrats would make history by nominating either Clinton or Obama. He would be the country’s first black president, while she would be the first woman in the job.

Jobs lost — or could they return?

Romney has criticised McCain for asserting that jobs lost are ”not coming back”, calling it defeatist. McCain hit back, saying he would be ”ashamed and embarrassed” if he were to claim that old jobs were coming back. He proposed improving retraining programs for those who lost their jobs.

McCain said new increased fuel efficiency standards recently passed by Congress, which raised fuel-economy standards to an average of 56km per gallon by 2020, could help manufacturers develop cars that rely less on foreign oil.

”I have great faith in the auto industry that they’ll be able to meet these … standards, we’ll move to hybrid cars, we’ll move to hydrogen, we’ll move to batteries, and I as president will do everything I can to help them do that,” McCain told reporters after a campaign event in Warren, Michigan.

Romney said the new standards, the first increase since 1975, would ”help the foreign manufacturers and hurt us”.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has skipped the early states but still hopes to jump into the race by winning the Republican primary in Florida on January 29.

McCain won backing from one of South Carolina’s major newspapers, The State, which described him as having ”the necessary experience, not just in time served, but in the quality of understanding he exhibits across the board”.

Michigan, America’s eighth-largest state with 10-million residents, has been bleeding jobs and experiencing a population exodus.

”It is an angry voter and they don’t know who to blame,” Michigan political pollster Ed Sarpolus said, describing his sense of the state that has the highest unemployment rate in the country — 7,4% — and soaring home foreclosures.

Huckabee has been running a television advertisement in Michigan arguing voters want their ”next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off”, a shot at Romney’s years as a venture capitalist.

Romney argues winning the state is personal because he was born and raised here, and his father once served as governor.

Late last year, a poll showed roughly three-quarters of residents listed the economy as their top concern. University of Michigan economists predicted 51 000 more jobs would be wiped out in the state this year in addition to the 400 000 lost since 2000. – Reuters