Romney brings autos back to center of Ohio campaign

• Obama sees the auto bailout as one of his major victories, and has touted it in Ohio
• Romney's new ad on autos has been widely criticized by Ohio newspapers
• Auto executives say the ad is misleading

In battleground Ohio the focus of the presidential race has returned to one of President Obama's favorite topics -- the auto industry -- courtesy of Mitt Romney, who brought the issue back to center stage.

The Romney campaign set off controversy with a TV ad that implies Chrysler will move Jeep production to China. A Romney radio ad said that under Obama, General Motors had cut 15,000 jobs.

The automakers swiftly objected. "Jeep has no intention of shifting production'' to China, the company said. Chrysler hopes to restart production of Jeeps in China to be sold there. A GM spokesman called the ad criticizing its job cuts "campaign politics at its cynical worst.'' Most of the job cuts occurred before the company's bankruptcy.

So did Ohio newspapers. Romney's implication that jobs were being shifted overseas earned him a stinging editorial from The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, which called the spot "a masterpiece of misdirection" from a candidate "desperate to convince Ohio voters that he's the candidate most committed to the U.S. auto industry – no matter how much confusion he must sow to do it.''

The (Toledo) Blade called it "an exercise in deception … remarkable even by the standards of his campaign.''

An ad watch in The Columbus Dispatch -- the editorial page of which endorsed Romney, unlike the other papers – pointed out the ad's inaccuracy: "what is being considered is adding production in China -- not shutting down American Jeep factories such as the one in Toledo."

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul says the ads are factually accurate. "As a result of his handling of the auto bailout, American taxpayers stand to lose $25 billion and GM and Chrysler are expanding their production overseas,'' she said in a statement.

The ad provoked a strong reaction from the Obama campaign, which has produced two ads in response, including an ad Thursday that cites the automakers' objections. "We know it's not true, Mitt,'' the ad says.

In a conference call for the Obama campaign Thursday, former Ohio governor Ted Strickland, a Democrat, called Romney's claim about moving jobs overseas "a dishonest end to a dishonest campaign.''

"This is not a move a campaign makes when it thinks it's winning,'' Strickland said.

The issue is potent because of Ohio's large number of auto-manufacturing jobs. But that also means the state's voters are well informed about the industry -- likely to understand when an ad is misleading and likely to understand why Chrysler needs to sell Jeeps in China, says Russell Mills, political scientist at Ohio's Bowling Green State University. "People here know these issues very well,'' he says. "Everybody knows the Jeep plant, they're investing millions in expanding it.''

Chrysler has said it will add 1,100 jobs at its Toledo plant next year.

A rebuke from the automakers hurts Romney's credibility, Mills says. "It looks bad for him when CEOs of companies are calling him out.''

For the Obama campaign, Romney's ads provide an opportunity to focus on the successful turnaround of the auto industry and to hammer Romney as the candidate who opposed federal financing for auto companies during their bankruptcy.

Ohio voters have been swamped with so many ads they may well tune out Romney's Jeep ad and the Obama rebuttals, says Erik Nesbit, a political scientist at Ohio State University. But local coverage of the controversy will help shape their overall impression of the candidates, he says. "A media narrative at the local level ... is going to be more impactful than one particular ad.''