Will Michigan hand Mitt Romney a defeat for his stance on the auto bailout?

Personally, I’m one of those on the left who can actually find common ground with those on the right like Mitt Romney, when it comes to the bailout of the U.S. auto industry. It’s government welfare for corporations and if we (unfortunately) give such a hard time to American citizens who seek help in their time of need; then we should not be giving corporations a free pass.

When a corporation comes upon hard times, I’m more of the mind that they should go through a restructuring phase; where they right themselves and emerge from bankruptcy. I would like to add that I’d like to see as many jobs preserved in the process as possible. Mitt Romney says he was advocating for a restructuring vs. bailout strategy in regards to the auto industry.

There’s one problem with Mitt Romney’s thinking as it is applied to the U.S. auto industry however:

To go through the bankruptcy process, both companies needed billions of dollars in financing, money that auto executives and government officials who were involved with Mr. Obama’s auto task force say was not available at a time when the credit markets had dried up. The only entity that could provide the $80 billion needed, they say, was the federal government. No private companies would come to the industry’s aid, and the only path through bankruptcy would have been Chapter 7 liquidation, not the more orderly Chapter 11 reorganization, these people said.

In closing, there are established figures in the auto industry like Bob Lutz, the man behind the Chevy Volt, who are so furious with Mitt Romney that he’s mailed in an absentee ballot in the Michigan Republican primary for Rick Santorum. A lot of industry executives believe that there came a time where you had to put aside ideology and face reality.