DETROIT - On the eve of today's potentially make-or-break primary in Michigan, Mitt Romney campaigned yesterday as the savior of the auto industry, trying to convince voters that he is the Republican presidential hopeful best equipped to turn around the state's battered economy.
In a speech to business leaders and at an international auto show, he was especially critical of new fuel efficiency standards signed into law last month by President Bush. "Instead of throwing over a life preserver, Washington has dropped yet another anvil on Michigan," Romney told the Detroit Economic Club. "And now it's passively sitting back to see if car companies can swim, and the answer is: just barely."
But as governor, Romney imposed tough emissions standards in December 2005 that added Massachusetts to a growing list of states seeking to force the auto industry to produce cleaner-burning cars - which automakers considered a back-door attempt to raise fuel standards. Under the rules, cars sold in the state after 2015 must emit 30 percent less carbon dioxide, 20 percent fewer toxic pollutants, and as much as 20 percent fewer smog- causing pollutants than under federal standards.
Seth Kaplan, vice president at the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston environmental group, said the standards were tougher on automakers than the federal standards Romney is now decrying in Michigan.
"The positions are inconsistent, to put it mildly," Kaplan said yesterday. He added that rather than bemoan the rules as a burden on business, Romney officials had praised them as a "significant step in cleaning our air."
Romney noted yesterday that state law required him to follow California's lead on auto emissions and he also "felt that that was the right thing to do for Massachusetts."
Romney was also criticized yesterday for an auto tax proposal he made while running for governor in 2002. At the time, Romney said, he wanted to lower excise taxes for fuel-efficient vehicles, but rival John McCain's campaign said yesterday that because the plan was designed to be revenue neutral, that would have resulted in higher taxes on sport utility vehicles.
The excise tax plan, which was never adopted, "would have hurt the same American auto industry in Michigan that he now claims to champion," said Jane M. Swift, the former acting governor of Massachusetts who is backing McCain.
Another central point that Romney has made in Michigan is that he would use his business acumen to create jobs. Yet during his four-year term as Massachusetts governor, which began in the depths of a recession, the number of jobs grew by just 0.5 percent, compared with 5.5 percent nationally, according to Labor Department statistics. Only three states did worse: Ohio, Louisiana, and Michigan.
Manufacturing employment in Massachusetts slid 12 percent, more than double the national average; the state fared only slightly better than Michigan, which lost more than 15 percent of manufacturing jobs during that period.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a campaign spokesman, defended Romney's record.
"It is an indisputable fact that when Mitt Romney took office, Massachusetts was losing thousands of jobs every month and the state was facing a fiscal crisis," Fehrnstrom said. "Four years later, the state budget was balanced, the economy was adding jobs, and Wall Street responded with a credit rating upgrade."
In campaign appearances and speeches leading up to today's vote, Romney, McCain, and Mike Huckabee have focused on Michigan's economic woes, which have led to the nation's highest unemployment rate, 7.4 percent in November.
In yesterday's address to the Detroit Economic Club, whose main sponsors include the three major US automakers, Romney pledged to make the auto industry's revival a centerpiece of his administration.
"I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I'm in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, congressional, and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America's automotive leadership," he said to applause.
He also pledged to increase from $4 billion to $20 billion federal spending on energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology. Romney said there is "no one silver bullet," but said he is the only candidate with the business experience to revive Michigan's economy.
"Washington politicians look at Michigan and they see a rust belt," Romney said. "But the real rust is in Washington. The pessimist will point to an empty factory and a laid-off worker and say they have no future. Instead, I see a vital infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and an innovative spirit, all worthy of an optimistic vision."
Polls suggest Romney is in a close race with McCain, who beat him last week in New Hampshire, with Huckabee, who bested him in Iowa, in third place. A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby tracking poll released yesterday gave McCain a narrow edge over Romney, 27 percent to 24 percent, which is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Romney has been drawing larger, more enthusiastic crowds in the final days and also appeared last night on CNN's "Larry King Live" and ABC's "Nightline." "I do believe that overall I'm going to win, and one thing's for sure, I'm not going to stop at the end of Michigan," he told reporters. "Win or lose, I'm going on to South Carolina and Nevada and all the way through Feb. 5 and hopefully beyond."
McCain, who won the Michigan primary in 2000, has also been campaigning vigorously in the state. But unlike Romney, who has pledged to fight for every lost job, he has said some jobs cannot be brought back and that as president he would revamp training programs for laid-off workers.
"We're not going to leave these people behind," McCain told more than 1,000 people at Kalamazoo Christian High School yesterday. "That's what America is supposed to be all about."
Huckabee, meanwhile, said he is the only candidate who understands the struggles of working-class families.
"If you want somebody who believes the status quo is just fine, you have plenty of choices," he told about 100 people at a rally yesterday in Augusta.
All three candidates toured the North American International Auto Show yesterday afternoon, passing within yards and minutes of one another as they were mobbed by TV news crews. Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, where the leading Republicans ripped one another in TV ads and speeches, in Michigan they have focused on accentuating their job growth plans and records.
Romney's economic record as governor is mixed at best, according to economists and business officials. They credit Romney with stabilizing the state's budget, streamlining regulations, and reforming healthcare, but say that he soon became distracted, first by his ultimately unsuccessful effort to unseat Democrats in the Legislature and later by his national ambitions.
Brian Gilmore, spokesman for Associated Industries of Massachusetts, said Romney's early focus on luring big companies to Massachusetts revealed a misunderstanding of a state economy driven by small, homegrown firms.
"Traditionally, the growth in Massachusetts is internal," said Gilmore. "They grow here because of the workforce, the universities, and the availability of venture capital, and I don't know if he did anything to enhance them."
"Mitt Romney as governor did some things well," said Paul Guzzi, president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "But as far as creating jobs to drive the economy, there was disappointment.
"He probably didn't meet the expectations of the employer community."
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com; Robert Gavin at rgavin@globe.com.
Correction: Because of an editing error, a Page One story yesterday about Mitt Romney campaigning in Michigan omitted an important paragraph. In the story, Seth Kaplan, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston environmental group, said emissions standards imposed by Romney in Massachusetts in December 2005 were tougher on automakers than the federal standards Romney is now decrying in Michigan. "The positions are inconsistent, to put it mildly," Kaplan said.
The omitted paragraph said: Romney noted state law required him to follow California's lead on auto emissions and he also "felt that that was the right thing to do for Massachusetts."
