President Barack Obama and his allies in two big industrial unions appear poised to make the auto bailout — begun under President George W. Bush in 2008 — a central issue of the 2012 campaign.
With General Motors back on its feet — it announced $2 billion in new investments at 18 GM plants Tuesday — and losses from the government’s intervention shaping up to be minimal, Democrats hope to punish Republican presidential candidates for their early opposition. The party is building the groundwork for that argument in the key swing states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, and using it to target the blue collar voters whose allegiance Obama has struggled to retain.
The task will not be easy. A growing awareness of the seeming success of the auto bailout did little to keep Democratic candidates from being massacred in the region last November.
Obama has already learned, in other contexts, that the political benefits of a crisis averted may be elusive, and some observers note that communities also lost plants and jobs during the bailout and restructuring process — a dynamic that could mute voters’ warm memories of the deal.
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