I am entering this fray because it involves on of my holdings, Harley Davidson (HOG)
A new Obama ad said:
“The ad featured McCain appearing at the recent Sturgis motorbike rally in South Dakota where he proclaimed to cheering bikers: “Not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent.
“I will take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day!”
With the noise of a motorcycle engine throbbing in the background, the Obama ad’s narrator says: “It’s time to hear the roar of a strong American economy again, and stop John McCain from shipping our jobs overseas.”
Rick Gray, an avid biker who is mayor of Lancaster in Pennsylvania, not far from York, said in an Obama campaign statement that McCain was guilty of hypocrisy.
“John McCain should be ashamed of himself, not just for voting against protecting an American company like Harley-Davidson, but then for going in front of a group of motorcyclists in Sturgis and pretending to be one of them,” he said.
The statement noted that the local Harley factory was shedding 300 workers, as McCain came to York to press home his message to blue-collar workers that Obama is a dangerous risk for the presidency. “
The jobs lost at the Harley Davidson plant have nothing to do with “jobs going overseas”. In fact, not a single Harley Davidson motorcycle is made anywhere but in the US and to the best of my knowledge no local government or the Feds use anything other than Harley’s (mainly police work) . The job losses are simply from the current decline in bike sales due to the economy and tighter credit markets. Simple
I know these ads use populist rhetoric to convey a message in 30 seconds, but, ought they not contain a glimmer of truth?
Disclosure (“none” means no position):Long HOG
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