On the Fence in Detroit

Before a dinner inside one of Ford Motor Co.'s design studios last week, CEO Alan Mulally gushed over how inspired he is by Barack Obama. "I like his campaign speech where he says, 'We're choosing hope over fear'," said Mulally, who is presiding over painful cutbacks at the struggling automaker. "It's sounds like what we're trying to do at Ford." Does that mean Mulally supports Obama for president? He wouldn't say. Has he contributed to any presidential candidates? "It's public record," he said. "You can check." We did. He hadn't by the end of September 2007.

When it comes to picking a presidential candidate in Tuesday's Michigan primary, what's an auto exec to do? The Republicans turn a deaf ear to Detroit's pleas for government help with their crushing health-care costs. The Democrats could turn up the heat even more on global warming. After taking a bipartisan whipping last month on the energy bill—which boosted gas-mileage requirements 40 percent despite Detroit's opposition—America's automakers appear about as popular as Big Tobacco. They have few friends in Washington and even fewer, it would appear, on the campaign trail. It's little wonder, then, that no clear consensus candidate has emerged among the Big Wheels in Motown. "The auto industry feels like it doesn't have any friends among the candidates," says Michigan pollster Steve Mitchell. "It's just a matter of who is the least offensive and who will be least hard on us."

The natural choice would seem to be native son Mitt Romney. After all, his father, George, was more than just a popular Michigan governor--he was an auto executive as CEO of American Motors in the 1950s. And indeed some of the auto elite have lined up behind Romney. General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner contributed $2,100 to Romney's campaign last year, according to an analysis of federal campaign records for NEWSWEEK conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics. And several members of the Fisher family, automotive pioneers from old-money Grosse Pointe, combined to give Romney more than $15,000. Prominent auto-supplier execs gave to Romney, too. That explains why individual contributions from the Detroit auto crowd totaled $68,350 for Republican candidates and only $26,100 for Democrats through the first nine months of last year, according to federal records. Among all Michigan contributors, Romney has taken in $1,888,101 to John McCain's $899,308, Hillary Clinton's $595,465 and Barack Obama's $473,160.

And yet, that's not putting Romney over the top in Michigan. A new poll out Jan. 11 showed McCain with a 7-point lead over Romney. The poll, by Mitchell Interactive, found that Democrats and independents—who gave McCain the 2000 Michigan primary over George W. Bush—are defecting from a mostly meaningless Democratic primary to vote for the Arizona senator in the GOP race. Nearly one third of those planning to vote in Tuesday's Republican primary identified themselves as Democrats, while another 16 percent said they were independents. McCain captures both groups handily over Romney while splitting the Republican vote. "Mitt Romney has been campaigning in Michigan for two years; this shouldn't even be a competitive state for him," says Michigan pollster Ed Sarpolus. "He should be the assumed winner, but he's not."

What's holding the hometown boy back? There's a sense that the polished politician is pandering when he promised in the Republican debate last week to bring back those thousands of auto jobs Michigan has lost. The pollsters say McCain scored more points with his tough talk on the stump in Michigan, saying: "I know how difficult the economy is here in Michigan. I've got to look you in the eye and tell you some of those jobs aren't coming back." In a state that has had the highest unemployment in the nation for the last two years, McCain's message was viewed as refreshingly honest. "The automakers here have already said those jobs aren't coming back," says Sarpolus. "So he's being honest about something we've been discussing here in Michigan for years."

Obama, though, learned that if you talk too tough in Motown, it can backfire. In a blistering speech to the Detroit Economic Club last May, Obama castigated the carmakers for failing to engineer fuel-efficient cars. "Even as they've shed thousands of jobs and billions in profits over the last few years," Obama told a stunned audience, "they've continued to reward failure with lucrative bonuses for CEOs."