Automotive Legend Endorses Romney for President

TeddyBallgame

Time Out
Mar 30, 2012
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- Automotive legend and Democrat leaning Lee Iacocca has issued the following endorsement of Mitt Romney in the race for presidency. This is important not only because Iacocca is a popular and iconic figure in the US and one who usually votes Democrat but because it further exposes the outrageous misrepresentation of Romney's managed bankruptcy position by Obama's Chicago mugs, thugs and slugs who have tried to portray Romney, also the son of an automotive legend, as advocating the death of the US auto industry.

Election 2012
Lee Iacocca endorses Romney for president



By: John Gizzi
10/19/2012 10:17 AM



After a lifetime of voting for and supporting Democrats — and even declining appointment to the U.S. Senate from a Democratic governor — Lee Iacocca Thursday endorsed Republican Mitt Romney for president.
The blessings of the onetime Chrysler chairman are expected to help Romney in two highly competitive states: Pennsylvania, where the 88-year-old Iacocca was born and raised and is still widely respected, and in Michigan, where Iacocca rose to become a major figure in the auto industry and won international praise for cobbling together the government-backed loans that saved Chrysler in 1980.

Iacocca, who now lives in California, issued a statement saying he backed Romney because of his “dozens of years of experiences in the public and private sectors” and because the GOP nominee has a plan that “will enable a stronger America.”
What makes Iacocca’s endorsement of Romney particularly newsworthy is that, although he has long insisted he is an independent, the onetime auto titan has a history of supporting more Democrats than Republicans. He backed George W. Bush for president in 2000, but then backed John Kerry in 2004. Four years ago, he endorsed then-Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico for the Democratic nomination for president. In 1991, following the death of Sen. John Heinz (R-Ill.), Pennsylvania’s then-Democratic Gov. Bob Casey Sr. publicly voiced a desire to appoint Keystone State son Iacocca to fill the vacancy in the Senate. But Iacocca declined, and the appointment went to Democrat Harris Wofford.
Even more interesting about Iacocca lining up behind Romney is that, where the Republican nominee has been critical of the auto bailout, Iacocca told the Detroit News in 2010 that he supported the Obama administration’s plan to save General Motors and Chrysler. He did, however, say that the bailout plan cut out too many dealerships.
In his 2009 book Leadership, Iacocca was highly critical of President Obama and his administration, and in his statement endorsing Romney, he said “hope and speeches won’t get our people back to work.”
 

Goober

Hall of Fame Member
Jan 23, 2009
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Well Lee does like Govt Bailouts.

Lee Iacocca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1979 Chrysler bailout
the Dodge Aries, a typical K-Car

Realizing that the company would go out of business if it did not receive a significant amount of money for a turnaround, Iacocca approached the United States Congress in 1979 and asked for a loan guarantee. While some have said that Congress lent Chrysler the money, the government only guaranteed the loans. Most observers thought this was an unprecedented move, but Iacocca pointed to the government's bailouts of the airline and railroad industries. He argued that there were more jobs at stake in Chrysler's possible demise. Iacocca received the loan guarantee from the government, whose decision caused controversy.

Chrysler released the first of the K-Car line: the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant, in 1981. Similar to the later minivan, these compact automobiles were based on design proposals which Ford had rejected during Iacocca's (and Sperlich's) tenure. Released in the middle of the major 1980-1982 recession, the small, efficient and inexpensive front-wheel drive cars sold rapidly. In addition, Iacocca re-introduced the big Imperial as the company's flagship. The new model had all of the newest technologies of the time, including fully electronic fuel injection (the first car in the U.S. to be so equipped) and all-digital dashboard.

Chrysler introduced the minivan, chiefly Sperlich's "baby," in the fall of 1983. It led the automobile industry in sales for 25 years.[10] Because of the K-cars and minivans, along with the reforms Iacocca implemented, the company turned around quickly and was able to repay the government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected.
 

tay

Hall of Fame Member
May 20, 2012
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Besides the fact that Iacocca is a distant memory or totally unknown to the new generation, and as pointed out, a welfare (bailout) recipient, the reason there's no link is it's a reworking of his condemnation of the Bushies from his book of 2007...........



However, e-mailed versions of this excerpt have since been altered to remove Iacocca's criticisms of Republicans/conservatives and to insert denigrative passages about Democrats/liberals that were not written by Lee Iacocca and were not part of the original work.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...14DQCA&usg=AFQjCNHi4NuMiPT5Qjl8bRzvVp4p3IOJ0g