In an effort to win over auto workers in Ohio and across the Midwest, Team Romney this week unveiled a jaw-droppingly fraudulent ad rewriting Mitt's opposition to the federal bailout that saved the entire industry. But largely overlooked in the shocked response to his bogus claims about Jeep shipping U.S. jobs to China has been the union-bashing that was at the center of Romney's primary campaign to win the Republican nomination for president. As a quick glance reveals, Mitt Romney may profess "I love American cars," but not the Americans who make them.

During the GOP primaries, Governor Romney didn't merely back a national "right to work" law, support Ohio Governor John Kasich's now-overridden SB5 law banning collective bargaining rights for all public employees and denounce President Obama's appointees to the National Labor Relations Board as "union stooges." (That last charge was particularly ironic, given the later resignation of a Republican NLRB member for leaking confidential information to the Romney campaign.) Using vitriolic language his campaign would prefer Ohioans forget, Mitt Romney blasted the United Auto Workers despite the sacrifices its members made to save Detroit. As he boasted in Grand Rapids, Michigan back in February:

"I call it crony capitalism and that's the path that [Barack Obama] is taking. He got hundreds of millions of dollars from labor bosses for his campaign. And so, he's paying them back in every way he knows how. One way, of course, was giving General Motors and Chrysler to the UAW. I saw that Bob King said that I don't care about the auto industry. I'm sorry, Mr. King. I care very deeply about the auto industry. I want to make sure we have good jobs, not just for a few weeks but for many, many years. I want the auto industry to come back in a big way and I've taken on union bosses before, I'm happy to take them on again because I happen to believe that you can protect the interests of the American taxpayers and you can protect a great industry like automobiles without having to give in to the UAW and I sure won't."

Not to content to stop there, Romney in a Valentine's Day op-ed called President Obama's successful rescue of the auto industry a "sweetheart deal" and "crony capitalism on a grand scale."

Instead of doing the right thing and standing up to union bosses, Obama rewarded them...This was crony capitalism on a grand scale. The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.

In reality, there was no truth to Romney's charge that "The president gave the (auto) companies to the UAW." As Politifact explained:

The reality is Obama was in charge of a bailout deal that resulted in the union's health care trust owning stock in Chrysler and GM. But the trust was owed money to pay for health care under the terms of labor contracts the car companies signed. And the union "gave" plenty too -- in the form of wages, vacation and job security. In that light, the arrangement was a tradeoff, not a giveaway.

What tips Romney's claim even further from reality is the fact that the union itself does not own any GM or Chrysler stock. The trust that manages health benefits for retirees is the stockholder, and it is independent from the UAW. It is not a majority shareholder in either company, nor does it have a vote on the board.

While Romney's union-bashing might play well with conservative Republican primary voters, the general election is another matter altogether.

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It's as if Mitt Romney simply can't help himself. Gripped by an irresistible obsession to become President of the United States, Romney will lie to voters on almost any issue, large or small. And on no point is Romney's compulsion to fabricate more pathological than on President Obama's successful rescue of the American auto industry. As his new ad designed to dupe voters in Ohio and across the industrial Midwest makes clear, the same Mitt Romney who was content to "let Detroit go bankrupt" now pretends to be its savior.

The text of the new Romney spot seems impressive. Of course, it would be impressive if any of it was true.

"Who will do more for the auto industry? Not Barack Obama. Fact-checkers confirm his attacks on Mitt Romney are false. The truth? Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry. He's supported by Lee Iacocca and the Detroit News. Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job."

Even by Mitt Romney's standard, the lie-per-second ratio is unprecedented. While his supposed "plan to help the auto industry" remains a mystery, the truth of President Obama's auto rescue is not.

For starters, Jeep is expanding production in the growing market of China and not, as Romney pretended on Friday, "thinking of moving all production to China." It's no wonder the Detroit Free Press reported that "Romney camp silent on his Jeep-to-China gaffe." To call it a "gaffe" is an act of journalistic kindness. But given Paul Ryan's continuing fraud about President Obama's supposedly broken promise to keep GM's Janesville, Wisconsin plant open, Romney's latest fraud should come as no surprise.

Of course, Romney's claim that "Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy" is a smokescreen for his November 2008 op-ed opposing President Bush's bailout for Detroit. As he put it four years ago:

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Two funny things happened this week on Mitt Romney's way to the White House. First, the man who cried "let Detroit go bankrupt" announced "I'll take a lot of credit" for President Obama's million-job saving rescue of the American auto industry. But just as telling was the Republican's claim that, despite Obama's "Forward" campaign slogan, it was the President who was "looking backward." After all, Mitt Romney isn't merely offering an even more reactionary resurrection of George W. Bush's failed policies. As it turns out, from his charges on immigration reform and women's issues to labeling Obama an out of touch "Marie Antoinette" and so much else, Romney's strategy is call to the kettle black.

(Click a link below for the details on each.)

• "Looking Backward"
• "Fairness"
• "Out of Touch"
• "Spent Too Much Time at Harvard"
• "Hide-and-Seek Campaign"
• "Broke His Promise to Hispanics"
• "Respect Women in All Those Choices That They Make"

"Looking Backward"

In April, the RNC's Alexandra Franceschi gave away the game when she explained that even after the calamitous Bush recession which began over four years ago, the2012 GOP economic platform would be the Bush program, "just updated." As a quick glance at Mitt Romney's proposals shows, Franceschi has a gift for understatement.

Romney, after all, is promising massive tax cuts which would deliver the lion's share of their winnings to the very richest Americans, his family included. (His 20 percent across-the-board tax cut is simply a tired retread of Bob Dole's failed 1996 plan, one that nevertheless steers a third of its benefits to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of Americans.) He nevertheless pledges to balance the budget even while boosting defense spending. And this latest scion of a proud Republican family would like to privatize Social Security and leave Americans to fend for themselves in the private health insurance marketplace.

Undaunted, Romney slammed the President this week in East Lansing, Michigan:

"Looking backward won't solve the problems of today, nor will it take advantage of the opportunities of tomorrow," Romney said. "His are the policies of the past. The challenges of the present and the promise of tomorrow must be met by a new and bold vision for the future, and I will bring it."

Despite the conclusion of the nonpartisan CBO and the overwhelming consensus of economists that Obama's actions saved the U.S. from "Great Depression 2.0," Romney has insisted for months that the President "made the economy worse." Unfortunately for Mitt, "we are not stupid."

"Fairness"

Barack Obama has made "fairness" a central theme of his reelection campaign. And with good reason. After all, at a time of record income inequality and the lowest federal tax burden since 1950, Both Mitt Romney and his budgetary twin Paul Ryan would deliver a massive tax cut windfall for the rich, paying for it by gutting the social safety net each pretends to protect. Each would end Medicare as we know it with a premium support gambit that would dramatically shift health care costs to America's seniors. While increasing defense spending, the House Budget Chairman and the GOP frontrunner would repeal the Affordable Care and leave at least 30 million people without insurance. And despite their mutual pledges to end many tax loopholes and deductions to fund their gilded-class giveaway, neither Paul Ryan nor Mitt Romney has the courage to say which ones. As a result, these supposed deficit hawks would actually add trillions more in red ink to the national debt.

Nevertheless, Romney used the occasion of his Northeast primary sweep three weeks ago to portray himself as the crusader for fairness:

"We will stop the unfairness of urban children being denied access to the good schools of their choice; we will stop the unfairness of politicians giving taxpayer money to their friends' businesses; we will stop the unfairness of requiring union workers to contribute to politicians not of their choosing; we will stop the unfairness of government workers getting better pay and benefits than the taxpayers they serve; and we will stop the unfairness of one generation passing larger and larger debts on to the next."

Afterwards, The Democratic Strategist translated Romney's cynically transparent gimmick, "We will twist and distort the concept of fairness to justify bashing government workers, crushing labor unions and privatizing public schools."

"Out of Touch"

Four years ago, the campaign of John McCain - a hundred-millionaire who literally lost count of how many homes he owned - unsuccessfully tried to portray Barack Obama as an out-of-touch, arugula-eating elitist who vacationed in exotic Hawaii. Now Mitt Romney has branded President Obama a modern day Marie Antoinette, an "out of touch" occupant of the White House whose message to financially struggling Americans is "let them eat cake."

That might not be the wisest strategy.

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It's awfully tough to be a presidential candidate worth $250 million when income inequality and poverty are at record levels. Of course, it's tougher still when you're Mitt Romney. After all, in words and in deeds, Romney for years has consistently reminded Americans of "the guy who laid you off."

Now, a week after the Republican frontrunner proposed deep spending cuts for lower income Americans to offset his $6.6 trillion tax cut windfall for the richest individuals and corporations, here are just some of the ways you know Mitt Romney is out of touch.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the $250,000,000 son of an auto magnate jokes with jobless voters, "I'm also unemployed."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares himself part of the "80 to 90 percent us" who are middle class.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he won't release his tax returns during any of his runs for office.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he declares "I love a flat tax" after calling it a "tax cut for fat cats."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when decides he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid -- "the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he responds "I'm not concerned about the voters" after Tim Russert asked him "why not tell the voters of Florida and across the country how much of your own wealth you're spending?"

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his wife Ann jokes that "Mitt doesn't even know the answer to that" when asked how many dressage horses she owns.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when the estimated 14 percent tax rate he paid the IRS is lower than Warren Buffett's.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" could save his own family tens of millions of dollars.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his tax cut proposal supposedly focused on "the people in the middle" delivers two-thirds of its benefits to millionaires - including Mitt Romney.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he lies about federal employees making more than their private sector counterparts and then complains about "our servants who are making a lot more money than we are."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he apparently forgets which state he lives in, votes in and pays taxes in - twice.

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he sells two of his four multimillion dollars mansions because he and his wife are, according to an aide, "downsizing and simplifying."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when his advice to struggling American homeowners is "don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up."

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he says Democrats are "the party of the monarchists."

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