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General Motors made a bold play this week and has decided to ban President Barack Obama and Rebpulican candidate Mitt Romney from campaigning at their plants.
GM, saved by federal loans a few years ago, desperately wants to avoid becoming the centerpiece of campaign rhetoric. So it has banned candidates from its plants at least until after Election Day, Nov. 6, despite the fact that the U.S. Treasury remains its largest shareholder.
The Detroit car giant wants to be viewed as a success story -- not the arm of any campaign.
"We would like to put all of our energy behind selling our cars and trucks," said Bob Ferguson, GM's vice president for global public policy. "It's an understatement to say we can't wait for November to get here."
GM and experts say the company has been intentionally less visible in lobbying on some federal issues and is, in effect, taking cover until the election is over. The Treasury Department, which provided $49.5 billion to bail out GM, still owns 32% of the new GM's common stock, despite getting repaid more than $23 billion so far.
Obama takes credit for GM's survival, saying in February that the auto industry had added 200,000 jobs since 2009. But Romney tries to use the bailout against the president as a poor and expensive deal for taxpayers. The candidates are expected to continue bashing each other with the auto industry bailout and the ins and outs of GM's near-death and revival.
In Detroit on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden sounded a now-familiar campaign refrain that makes GM executives cringe:
"Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive."
It's lines like that which prompted GM to make this interesting decision about banning the candidates from campaigning at GM plants.
We are asking facebook fans this morning if you feel General Motors is making the right decision? Should they be involved in the campaign process this fall? Chime in now!
