Clout Has Plunged for Automakers and Union

From The New York Times:

When the leaders of the three Detroit auto companies and the United Automobile Workers union travel to Washington to make their case for a federal bailout, they will be flying into stiff headwinds of public opinion.

Thus far, much of the commentary in Washington, in the pages of major newspapers and on the Web, has been against providing financial support for the companies, which they will say they desperately need in hearings beginning on Tuesday.

The waves of criticism have been so strong that Susan Tompor, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, was moved to write on Sunday’s front page: “I never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”

It is a remarkable shift for an industry that has long wielded considerable clout in Washington.

But that support has dwindled for many reasons, leaving backers of a bailout, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, having a tough time making their case that Detroit should be saved.

So how did the famous 1953 quotation from the former General Motors president Charles E. Wilson — that what was good for our country was good for G.M., and vice versa — become a dated notion to so many people?

Analysts and longtime observers of the industry say several strategic missteps have hurt Detroit’s standing.

The carmakers, for example, fought hard in recent years against two Congressional efforts to raise fuel economy standards, at a time when Americans were struggling with more expensive gasoline and had become more environmentally conscious.

They won the 2005 fight, when 67 senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, sided with Detroit’s argument that it did not have the technology to meet a modest increase.
Thus far, much of the commentary in Washington, in the pages of major newspapers and on the Web, has been against providing financial support for the companies, which they will say they desperately need in hearings beginning on Tuesday.

The waves of criticism have been so strong that Susan Tompor, a columnist for The Detroit Free Press, was moved to write on Sunday’s front page: “I never knew Detroit was a dirty word.”

It is a remarkable shift for an industry that has long wielded considerable clout in Washington.

But that support has dwindled for many reasons, leaving backers of a bailout, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, having a tough time making their case that Detroit should be saved.

So how did the famous 1953 quotation from the former General Motors president Charles E. Wilson — that what was good for our country was good for G.M., and vice versa — become a dated notion to so many people?

Analysts and longtime observers of the industry say several strategic missteps have hurt Detroit’s standing.

The carmakers, for example, fought hard in recent years against two Congressional efforts to raise fuel economy standards, at a time when Americans were struggling with more expensive gasoline and had become more environmentally conscious.

They won the 2005 fight, when 67 senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, sided with Detroit’s argument that it did not have the technology to meet a modest increase.

But Detroit lost last year’s effort to block an increase to 35 miles a gallon by 2020. Some senators criticized the industry’s failure to sell cars like the Toyota Prius, which was built only as a hybrid — a vehicle that G.M.’s vice chairman, Robert A. Lutz, dismissed early on as a public relations move.

The U.A.W. program, called the Jobs Bank at G.M., provided nearly full pay for laid off workers while they waited for new jobs. A new version of it is less generous, but has left an impression in the public imagination of a place where workers sit around getting paid for doing nothing.

So far this year, G.M. has spent $10 million on lobbying, out of $95 million in the past 10 years, placing it at No. 16 on the site’s “top spenders” list. Ford, which ranks No. 19 on the list, has spent $5.7 million this year, out of $80.6 million the last decade.