Romney is Facing Strong Pushback Over False “Jeep/Chrysler Moving to China” Statement
Business Insider - 10/29/2012
Mitt Romney is facing intense pushback over a new Ohio campaign ad that appears to suggest — falsely — that Chrysler is moving U.S. jobs to China.
The ad doubles down on a statement that Romney made on the campaign trail last week, when he told a crowd in Defiance, Ohio, that Chrysler was moving production on its Jeep models from Ohio to China.
The claim is completely misleading and false, and provoked an outcry from Chrysler, reporters and Democrats.
Ads that mislead or stretch the truth are nothing new for presidential campaigns. But this ad — and Romney's comments last week — has prompted harsh criticism from the media, likely because it strikes reporters as not only disingenuous, but irresponsible. For Romney to suggest that the livelihoods of specific voters — namely workers at the Jeep plant in Toledo — are in danger in order to win an election comes across to many as the type of fear-mongering that no one wants in a president.
