VP Candidate Sen. Joe Biden Visits Mustang Plant at Flat Rock, MI

[hotwheels]

2008 VP candidate Senator Joe Biden visits Ford Motor Company's AutoAlliance International, Inc. in Flat Rock, Mich. where the Mustang and the Mazda6 is produced.

He enjoyed a tour and a sit-down in a new 2009 Ford Shelby GT-500.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden delivered a sharp but hopeful message right to the heart of the embattled autoworker today, as he visited a factory in Flat Rock that builds the Ford Mustang and other Ford- and Mazda-brand cars.

“Keep the faith,” U.S. Sen. Biden confidently told a few hundred workers at Auto Alliance International, as he shook hands and made his way through a crowd that had gathered for his afternoon visit.

“Keep the faith,” he said repeatedly.

Calling the automotive industry “the backbone” of the U.S. economy, Biden said he was fighting to help get automakers the $25 billion in loans they have been lobbying for to transition to a more fuel-efficient future.

Biden said the loans would pass “if I have anything to do with it.”

“Folks,” he said, “this is the muscle, the heart, the soul, the sinew of everything about American industry, and it’s automobiles, and we’ve got to bring back the industry.”

Biden noted that the “so-called Chrysler bailout” that he voted for in the 1970s was a success.

“Guess what: We made money. Chrysler paid back the loan ahead of time,” he said.

“They kept my guys working,” he added, making a reference to a former Chrysler plant in Delaware, which Biden represents as a U.S. senator. He also mentioned that General Motors Corp. has a factory in his state.

“We used to have 10,000 autoworkers in my state,” he said.

Today, he noted, “They’re dying. They’re shuttering my Chrysler plant right now, and they’re talking about no new product at my GM plant.

Biden listed off a variety of other countries that support their automotive industry, such as China, Germany and South Korea, and noted:

“Folks, if we do not -- if we do not -- do what the rest of the world is doing and invest in the technology needed … to build automobiles people want to buy, so we’re not relying on foreign oil … we’re stupid.”

Looking around the room and gesturing to the workers around him, he said, “This is no joke. ... This is what built the middle class of America. …

“If we let these jobs go, well, shame on us, man, shame on us.”