Mr. Romney's Sales Pitch

A troubling take on Detroit from a candidate in search of a win

FORMER Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney presents himself as an analytical businessman who understands how to harness the powers of the free market to turn around an ailing enterprise. You wouldn't know it from his comments in the run-up to today's presidential primary in Michigan. Mr. Romney has cast himself as a champion of the auto industry in which his father once worked, assailing Arizona Sen. John McCain for saying that some of the state's lost automotive jobs are never coming back. Surely Michigan voters, reeling under a 7.4 percent unemployment rate, understand economic reality well enough not to be fooled by Mr. Romney's rosy "I'm going to fight for every single job" scenario.

"The burdens on American manufacturing are largely imposed by government -- and new leadership in Washington can lift those burdens and lift the industry," Mr. Romney said in a speech yesterday at the Detroit Economic Club. That's ridiculous. You don't have to be, as Mr. Romney is, a Harvard Business School graduate to understand that the woes of manufacturing in general and the auto industry in particular have far more to do with other forces, large and small, than they do with Washington policymakers. The competitive pressures of a globalized economy, Detroit's sluggish response to foreign imports, labor agreements that saddled automakers with the rising costs of an aging cadre of retirees -- all of these have more to do with the industry's plight than anything Washington policymakers have or haven't done.

The more specific Mr. Romney becomes in his prescriptions, the more unattractive his approach becomes. "Washington has to stop loading Detroit down with unfunded mandates," he said yesterday, decrying the long-overdue increase in corporate average fuel economy standards (CAFE) contained in the just-passed -- and just-signed by President Bush -- energy legislation. "Of course, fleet mileage needs to rise," Mr. Romney said -- but then he added, "Washington-dictated CAFE is not the right answer." How, then, would Mr. Romney achieve the goal? Given that the CAFE standard had not been changed since 1975; that the dean of the Michigan congressional delegation, Rep. John D. Dingell (D), acceded, however reluctantly, to the increase (from 25 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks to 35 mpg by 2020); that the reform would help both in reducing demand for expensive foreign oil and in addressing climate change, Mr. Romney's criticisms are unfounded.

Mr. Romney is similarly mistaken when he criticizes Mr. McCain for backing a cap-and-trade system to combat global warming because the measure "unilaterally imposes new, high energy costs on U.S. manufacturers." Mr. Romney argues that, as he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "a unilateral effort would only cause higher costs here in this country and give the advantage to Japan, to Korea, to China, nations that already have a substantial cost advantage, and drive jobs further away from Detroit, Michigan and America." It's true that climate change is a problem that will ultimately require a global solution. But America has been the world's No. 1 carbon emitter, and a U.S. commitment to solving the problem is critical to bringing along other major polluters.

We understand that Michigan is a must-win state for Mr. Romney. But he is running to be president of all Americans -- and the list of troubling things he is willing to say to get there grows longer.