John and Cindy McCain at a General Motors assembly plant in Lake Orion, Mich., today. (AP Photo by Stephan Savoia)
by Jill Zuckman
Detroit - What a change a few months, a drop of hundreds of points on the Dow Jones Stock Exchange, and a bunch of Wall Street collapses and bailouts have wrought.
Sen. John McCain, who once staunchly maintained that autoworkers' jobs just weren't coming back, offered a far more populist tone today as he toured the GM plant in Lake Orion, Michigan, telling workers there that the economic problems weren't their fault.
"I'm here to send a message to Washington and to Wall Street," McCain told the autoworkers. "We're not going to leave the workers here in Michigan hung out to dry while we give billions in taxpayers' dollars to Wall Street. We're going to take care of the workers - the workers. They're the ones that deserve our help."
The auto plant was visibly divided between workers who support McCain and those who favor Sen. Barack Obama. Many of the Democrats' supporters wore Obama t-shirts and hats and broke out into chants of "Obama-oh-eight" at the conclusion of McCain's remarks.
McCain told the employees that it is time to get the auto industry on its feet.
"And it's time for a new generation of cars and for loans to build the facilities to make them," he said. "These workers here are the best in the world. They're the best and most productive and most innovative and the finest and are the backbone and foundation of our economy. And anybody that tells you they aren't hasn't had the opportunity to know them and their product like I have."
McCain even invoked an icon of Democratic politics to make his point.
"One of our great presidents, Franklin Roosevelt, expressed this optimism even at the height of the Great Depression. He said, and I quote, 'plenty is at our doorstop but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.' "
"My friends, that's true again today. I reject the gloom and doom that says our nation is in decline," McCain said. "America's best days are ahead of us."
McCain told the workers, "It's not your problem, fault. I'll tell you whose fault it is. Corruption in Washington and corruption on Wall Street and as president I'm going to clean it up and I'm going to fix it and return you back to the strength of our economy that you have earned and deserve."
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Comments
It's enough to make you hurl. The guy who admires the business model of FedEx CEO, Fred Smith, telling workers how much he feels for them.
Posted by: dt | September 17, 2008 12:44 PM
If Wall Street is so corrupt, why does McCain want to give them control of Social Security?
Posted by: Lou | September 17, 2008 12:46 PM
He said, "workers," not "unions." The corruption in Washington includes the self-serving insistence of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win on the undemocratic Employee-Free Choice Act, which leaves the choice of whether to have a secret-ballot unionization election to union supporters; not employees who might vote, "no."
Posted by: Defend Worker Choice! | September 17, 2008 12:47 PM
OK, is anyone going to call this guy on his crap or what.
How can you be against Unionization and the American worker for almost three decades in Washington; but after the stock market crashes you are their best friend??? And why doesn't the media point out his lies????
Posted by: Trey | September 17, 2008 12:55 PM
Speak reverently, when you speak of President F. D. Roosevelt, Senator McCain, even if you don't really believe in what he stood for, "... liberty and justice, for all! ". At least Senator McCain didn't quote the string of Republican Presidents, with the exclusion of Presidents Eisenhower and Ford, that were all part of the problem that led to our economic meltdown, railing against Big Government, but not against Big Business ! I'm speaking of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bushes I and II !! They have obsessively attacked our government for it, doing its duty and protecting us against forces and entities, greater than a single citizen, who prey on us and wreak havoc on our lives !! Just ask the many victims of natural disasters, how it feels to have a government entity helping us, get our lives back together. Just ask the victims of the Enron Scam, they will tell you how helpful it was, to have a government agency that was helpful in their recovery of lost savings and revenues. This is the result of a mostly Republican onslaught of regulatory agencies and their denuding of power, workers and funds, so they could no longer protect our citizenry !! I will not even mention the devastation of Departments, just look at the Department of Veterans Affairs !! If you want more of this, vote for, possibly, a more incompetent Republican ticket, than the previous one !! If, on the other hand, you want a team that will govern for all of the people, Democrats and Republicans, than vote for Senator Obama and Senator Biden. They will right our ship of state and they will turnaround our falling economy !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | September 17, 2008 1:04 PM
McSame's pro "De-Regulation" angle works AGAINST unions, but that won't stop McBush from talking out of both sides of his face depending on who's in front of him. More of the same lies from McSame and his lobbyist friend Rick Davis
Posted by: karl | September 17, 2008 1:10 PM
I wish the owner- manager operatives would tell the truth about EFCA, instead of distorting the truth. Here is a neutral observation concerning the Act:
" Under the EFCA, an employer would no longer have the opportunity to demand a secret ballot election when a majority of employees have signed union cards and there is no evidence of illegal coercion. In addition, if the union and employer cannot agree upon the terms of a first collective bargaining contract within 90 days, either party can request federal mediation, which could lead to binding arbitration if an agreement still cannot be reached after an additional 30 days. Finally, the Act would provide for liquidated damages of three times back pay if employers were found to have unlawfully terminated pro-union employees."
Keep the employers nose out of the worker's business. Union-busting and union harassment is a common, and unconstitutional, practice that the owner-employers-management has used, decade after decade, to deny a basic constitutional right, the right to assemble. Stop the worker harassment, pass the EFCA !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | September 17, 2008 1:29 PM
He flips faster than Mitt; the great DeRegulator has gone socialist.... only until election day I'm sure.
Posted by: rupert | September 17, 2008 1:32 PM
McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time. Connect the dots:
McCain...Bush...Hoover
McCain invoking FDR. How bizarre.
Posted by: Kenneth Janowski | September 17, 2008 1:36 PM
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | September 17, 2008 1:29 PM
Don,
The reason FDR (a pragmatist committed to saving capitalism) and Sen. Wagner (without whom there would be no National Labor Relations Act) provided for employee elections was to protect workers from intimidation, coercion and retaliation. Even though those things are unlawful, not every coercive act gets reported. The secret-ballot election, on the other hand, guarantees that workers who support the union and workers who don't support the union exercise their choice in privacy. No one goes in the voting booth with them. That is not true of authorization cards, which workers frequently sign under pressure. But you and your tag-team partner Mel know all that, don't you, Don?
Posted by: Defend Worker Choice! | September 17, 2008 1:47 PM
John McCain now quotes FDR??
Funny, since he voted for Hoover in 1932!!!
The rumbling you hear coming from New York is FDR spinning in his grave over these remarks from a Republican!!!
Posted by: Bob "Hussein" inAtlanta | September 17, 2008 2:20 PM