Ohio
car dealership owner Al Zarzour is featured in the ad, saying he had
been selling cars since 1972 until he received a letter from General
Motors notifying him they were suspending his credit line.
"In 2009, under the Obama Administration's bailout of General Motors, Ohio dealerships were forced to close," Zarzour said.
The ad is released on the heels of a new Quinnipiac/CBS News/New York Times
poll,
which shows President Obama with a 6 percent lead in the battleground
state of Ohio, the focus of the ad. The ad is risky as the auto bailout
has proven popular in the state that ranks second in auto industry
workers.
Obama for America spokesperson Frank Benenati called the ad a "new low."
"While
the President was busy saving the US auto industry - which has 1 in 8
Ohio jobs tied to it - Mitt Romney was busy arguing that we should turn
our backs on an iconic industry and the workers in Ohio," Benanati wrote
in a statement.
As the ad says, loans became
difficult to obtain from both Wall Street financial institutions and the
lending arm of General Motors. Some dealerships struggled to stay
afloat or were forced to close due to the larger financial crisis and as
the government takeover and subsequent structured bankruptcy led to
less access to cash,
according to the Center for Automotive Research (CAR).
And
jobs were lost during the bailout, but only a fraction of the number
that would have been lost without it. The structured bankruptcy,
however, was estimated to have led to the loss of 365,000 jobs compared
an estimated 1.8 million jobs if the federal government did not
intervene, according to a
2010 study by CAR.
Ohio
is home to Sen. Rob Portman, who is considered to be on Romney's short
list for vice president. His office has not responded to requests for
comment about the Romney ad, but Governor Kasich John Kasich
spokesperson Rob Nichols said, "We're thrilled the auto industry is
still in here Ohio." He would not, however, comment on if the ad will
work there
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