General Motors, 2012 Presidential Election | featured news

"If he [Obama] didn't come through and give that vote and say, 'Yes we have got to save Chrysler. We have to save GM. We've got to do this,' all this Sterling Heights would have been gone, would have been dead."

When General Motors announced in 2008 that it would shut down its assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, local Representative Paul Ryan leaped into action.

...Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday portrayed Romney as weak and waffling when it comes to foreign policy, an issue on which Democrats feel they have the advantage in the fall campaign... Biden also repeated what he has said should be the bumper sticker slogan for the Obama campaign: "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive."

In seeking support in Michigan, Obama speaks frequently about how the federal bailout of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group led to GM's resurgence as the world's No. 1 automaker and 32,000 more auto-related jobs in the state since the companies emerged from their 2009 managed bankruptcies. Romney opposed the move, even writing a New York Times opinion piece in 2008 that carried the headline "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney defended himself Thursday against questions over why he opposed a federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler two years ago.