Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Ron Pulcer of Rutland Town.
During the second presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., on Oct. 16, audience member Susan Katz ended her question to Mitt Romney with, “What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?” My immediate thought was that President Bush and the Republican Congress renamed French fries to freedom fries, while Mitt Romney actually went to France as a Mormon missionary.
But seriously, when I began to follow this long electoral process watching the June 2011 Republican presidential primary debate in New Hampshire, I wondered how Mitt Romney compared to another George: his father. I wanted to learn more about George Romney, who was governor of Michigan from 1963-69, when I was a young child growing up in a near suburb of Detroit. I knew that George Romney was generally well respected by Michiganders on both sides of the political spectrum, but I didn’t know a lot of the details of his time as governor. So I did a little reading about Mitt’s father, a respected Republican moderate.
Three things that I learned about Gov. George Romney are related to the issues for which I voted for Barack Obama in 2008: America’s manufacturing economy, education and race relations.
George Romney was a strong supporter of the auto manufacturing industry. Before George Romney was president of American Motors from 1952-64, he played an important role during World War II in regards to shifting America’s manufacturing sector from automobiles to airplanes, vehicles and armaments for the war effort. George Romney took a manager’s job at the Detroit office of the Automobile Manufacturer’s Association in 1939. He also served as president of the Detroit Trade Association in 1941. In 1940, George Romney started the Automotive Committee for Air Defense. This committee coordinated planning between the automotive and aircraft industries. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, this committee became the Automotive Council on War Production, and Romney was its managing director.
When I worked on the General Motors account of Electronic Data Systems (Ross Perot’s company) in the 1990s, I would often visit customers at the main plant in Lansing (home of the now defunct Oldsmobile brand). In the stairwell between the metal stamping plant and the second floor engineering offices there was a very large black and white photomural, which covered the wall. The photo showed warplanes being built at that plant during WWII. George Romney must have had some part in transforming the production at that plant (at least at a high level).
Gov. George Romney inherited an $85 million deficit in 1963, but ended his tenure with a budget surplus. Working with Democrats in the Michigan Legislature the annual state budgets increased and the state’s income tax was created. At a time when the auto industry was profitable, the State of Michigan increased spending on education, and invested more tax dollars towards improving higher education.
Gov. George Romney inherited an $85 million deficit in 1963, but ended his tenure with a budget surplus. Working with Democrats in the Michigan Legislature the annual state budgets increased and the state’s income tax was created. At a time when the auto industry was profitable, the State of Michigan increased spending on education, and invested more tax dollars towards improving higher education.
When I entered college in the mid 1970s, I benefited from a quality community college and state college education, at affordable tuition rates. Despite the Great Recession, Michigan’s state support for higher education appears to continue, in comparing today’s in-state tuition at Macomb Community College, where I attended ($131 per credit) and the Community College of Vermont ($223 per credit).
I grew up in a predominantly white suburban city. Out of about 2,500 students in my high school in the 1970s, there were about only 10 black students in attendance. But I lived less than four miles from the border of Detroit. Today, the metro Detroit area is still very segregated. During George Romney’s tenure as governor, he supported the civil rights movement. When George Romney gave his first State of the State Address in 1963, he stated, “Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination — in housing, public accommodations, education, administration of justice, and employment.” Gov. George Romney also helped to create Michigan’s first Civil Rights Commission.
I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, figuring that it would take such a person who is half-white and half-black to help bridge the racial divide that has been part of our nation’s history from the beginning. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s certainly helped to improve the condition and treatment of African Americans, generally speaking, but racial tensions still persist. I never thought we would enter a “post-racial” era automatically overnight by the election of Barack Obama. Instead I thought Obama’s election could help begin to help heal race relations, in a way that was not possible with past presidents. However, the voter suppression laws and the “dog-whistle” political campaigning of 2012 sadden me. Lately, I have questioned whether America can solve its biggest problem; not the economy, unless that economy expands opportunity for all Americans, regardless of race.
I will be voting on Nov. 6. As a Michigan native, I will be voting against Mitt Romney. I will be voting in Vermont, but voting for president as a Michigander. I have several Michigan relatives that work in the auto industry as engineers, a draftsman, an accountant and a logistics analyst.
Although it is tempting sometimes to vote third party (Jill Stein or Gary Johnson), I will be voting again for President Obama. I am very grateful that President Obama helped America’s manufacturing economy and Michigan when it needed it most.
If you are still considering voting for Mitt Romney, don’t take my word for it as a Michigan native. You can also check out what other more prominent Michiganders like David Stockman and Walt DeVries have to say about Mitt Romney.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/14/david-stockman-mitt-romney-and-the-bain-drain.html
