Romney: The AMC Gremlin of the 2012 Presidential Election.
Why would any candidate tell this story and call it "humorous"?
Romney jokes about dad's decision to close Detroit auto plant
By David Shepardson, Detroit News Washington Bureau
Washington— Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney joked about his father's decision to close a Detroit plant in the mid-1950s and shift the work to Wisconsin, remarks that have drawn fire from Democrats.
On a telephone town hall meeting with Wisconsin voters Wednesday, Romney recounted the decision of his father, George Romney, then CEO of American Motors, to close the company's Hudson plants on Detroit's east side and shift the work to the company's Kenosha, Wis., plant.
American Motors was created by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motor Car Co. in January 1954. The decision moved Hudson production to Wisconsin, resulting in thousands of workers in Michigan losing their jobs, although some workers from Detroit were given a chance to transfer to Wisconsin. The Hudson brand continued in production until the brand in June 1957.
"One of (the) most humorous stories, I think, relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors," Romney said, according to audio of the call posted by ABC News and first reported by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
"They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin. Now, later he decided to run for governor of Michigan and so you can imagine that having closed the factory and moved all the production to Wisconsin was a very sensitive issue to him, for his campaign," he said.
Romney laughed about the incident and about how it affected his dad, a three-term Michigan governor.
"Now, I recall at one parade where he was going down the streets, he was led by a band, and they had a high school band that was leading each of the candidates, and his band did not know how to play the Michigan fight song," he said. "They only knew how to play the Wisconsin fight song, so every time they would start playing 'On, Wisconsin,' 'On, Wisconsin,' my dad's political people would jump up and down and try to get them to stop because they didn't want people in Michigan to be reminded that my dad had moved production to Wisconsin."
