WRAPUP 1-Romney, McCain debate jobs in depressed Michigan
YPSILANTI, Mich., Jan 12 (Reuters) - Republican rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain clashed on Saturday over how to revive the depressed economy of Michigan, the former manufacturing powerhouse that hosts the next contest in the U.S. presidential race that still has no clear front-runner.
Michigan-born Romney, needing to win here on Tuesday after losing Iowa to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and New Hampshire to Arizona Sen. McCain, went to a General Motors Corp. plant that just announced it was laying off 200 workers.
"It's inexcusable to me to see these jobs going away again and again and again," Romney said outside the plant, arguing for more investment in science and technology research.
While Republicans battled in Michigan, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigned for votes in Nevada, which holds presidential caucuses next Saturday, the next big test in her battle with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.
Democrats are not campaigning in Michigan, which offended the national party by advancing the date of the primary without its approval.
In both parties, the focus of the campaign has shifted to pocketbook issues like falling home prices, soaring oil prices, health care and unemployment as the U.S. economy edged closer to a recession.
"The economy is not working. It's not working for everybody," Clinton said in Nevada. "A lot of people are losing their homes because of fraudulent, misleading predatory lending practices."
Romney has criticized McCain for asserting that jobs lost are "not coming back," calling it defeatist. McCain hit back, saying he would be "ashamed and embarrassed" if he were to claim that old jobs were coming back and proposing improved retraining programs for those who lost their jobs.
McCain said new increased fuel efficiency standards recently passed by Congress, which raised fuel-economy standards to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, could help manufacturers develop cars that rely less on foreign oil.
"I have great faith in the auto industry that they'll be able to meet these ... standards, we'll move to hybrid cars, we'll move to hydrogen, we'll move to batteries, and I as president will do everything I can to help them do that," McCain told reporters after a campaign event in Warren, Michigan.
Romney said the new standards, the first increase since 1975, would "help the foreign manufacturers and hurt us."
A win in Michigan for Romney, McCain or Huckabee would offer momentum in the wide-open Republican race ahead of the South Carolina primary on Jan. 19, the next in state-by-state contests to choose candidates for November's election to determine President George W. Bush's successor.
MCCAIN GETS ENDORSEMENT
McCain won backing from one of South Carolina's major newspapers, The State, which described him as having "the necessary experience, not just in time served, but in the quality of understanding he exhibits across the board."
Michigan, the nation's eighth-largest state with 10 million residents, has been bleeding jobs and experiencing a population exodus. Continued...
