Detroit Welcomes Obama Task Force -- Sort Of

In meeting with representatives of President Obama’s automotive task force this week, Detroit is rewriting the definition of “mixed feelings.”

On the one hand, it’s important to make a good impression on Obama advisers Steven Rattner, Ron Bloom, Diana Farrell and Brian Deese. Their input will affect Obama’s ultimate decision on vital loan requests pending before the U.S. Treasury Department from Chrysler and GM.

GM, for instance, is expected to show off the Chevrolet Volt, which runs off a battery that can be recharged from an ordinary socket. It also has a conventional, gasoline-powered engine that recharges the battery when the power runs low.

On the other hand, some Detroiters are gritting their teeth, for many reasons. Some are resentful that no one on Obama’s automotive task force has any experience inside the auto industry. There’s also a certain amount of online buzz about the fact that as far as anybody can determine, the Obama task force members mostly drive import-brand cars – like much of the population outside Detroit.

Many Detroiters react strongly to what people drive. If the car company CEOs can be raked over the coals for showing up in Washington in private jets to plead poverty, the Detroit equivalent is showing up to “fix” the domestic auto industry driving an import-brand car, or even owning one. That’s true even if it’s assembled in America. Many cars and trucks from Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and others are.

Overall in Detroit, there’s also a very high background hum of shock, hurt and anger that things are so bad; that the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care; and that the auto industry even needs a government bailout in the first place. The auto industry has always seen government intervention in the auto industry as a mixed blessing at best.

The Detroit Free Press has been soliciting online comments from readers since Friday afternoon, March 6, asking readers what they would tell the Obama task force if they had the chance. When I looked earlier today, on March 9, they already had 283 comments.

It’s amazing to me that there were quite a few comments saying that the government should allow the car companies to go bankrupt. Quite a few readers said the task force should save the taxpayers’ money. Of course, there were also responses about saving jobs, and asking the task force to make it easier and more affordable for ordinary people to buy cars.

Based on a quick look at the most recent responses, I only saw hostile one. That reader advised the task force members to “get back into their imports and leave town.”