Even Ohio’s GOP governor is turning on Mitt Romney’s commercial deceptions.
In an interview with CBS This Morning, Gov. John Kasich refuted Team Romney’s claims that Chrysler is shipping jobs from Ohio to China at the expense of American jobs.
“Chrysler is one of the automakers that has increased employment,” Kasich said when asked if the jobs were being taken to China.
Romney has come under fire in the last week for the television and radio ads that are running in Ohio, the most critical battleground state in the country. The two auto giants, GM and Chrysler, have since called the ads bogus.
The fact of the matter is, Chrysler does plan to start hiring more Chinese workers to build Jeeps in China, but not at the expense of American jobs, as Romney suggests. No U.S. jobs are being shipped overseas. Instead, the Chinese-made Jeeps are a new enterprise intended to allow a U.S. company to further expand into the Chinese auto market, where a growing middle-class has created huge demand for vehicles.
Kasich, however, did say the enthusiasm on the ground in Ohio is “really with Republicans.” He also credited GOP leadership with adding 112,000 new jobs in the Buckeye State.
“What I’ve heard is that people give the Republicans in Ohio—they say things have really dramatically improved since they’ve been in. I’m thrilled with the fact that we have a strong auto industry in the state,” said Kasich.
The final pre-election poll from the Columbus Dispatch finds President Obama with a two point lead over Romney in Ohio, 50% to 48%. But that’s within the survey’s 2.2 point margin of error.
Tune into Hardball tonight at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. We’ll have NBC News’ chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd; msnbc political analyst Howard Fineman; Obama 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter; and others to discuss the latest in the presidential race.
