U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and nemesis of Detroit automakers and UAW workers in congressional hearings, came to the Detroit auto show for an up-close look Tuesday at the industry he's reluctant to rescue.
And he got a taste of the kind of confrontational grilling that he laid on auto company chief executives and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger in Washington.
"I realize that I'm not popular here," said the trim, 5-foot-7 Corker, a tiny figure buffeted in a sea of microphones, cameras and jostling journalists as he walked the floor of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center.
"But I'm proud of the effort I put forth," Corker said of his attempt to forge a Senate deal for auto industry rescue loans that foundered when Gettelfinger balked at Corker's demands for immediate wage reductions and other contract changes. After the Senate rejected a bailout deal, President George W. Bush approved $17.4 billion in bridge loans to keep General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC afloat.
Corker, not unlike the Detroit CEOs after the hearings in Congress, admitted Tuesday that he felt a bit misunderstood. "I don't know how people perceive me," he said.
The feisty first-term senator wasn't apologetic for his vote against the Detroit bridge loans or rattled by the questioning on the auto show floor as he made his way from the GM exhibit to Volkswagen's (Volkswagen is building a manufacturing plant in Tennessee) and later to Chrysler and to Ford.
"I wasn't born yesterday," he said. "I've been in a rough-and-tumble business all my life." Corker, 56, founded and ran successful construction and real estate businesses before becoming mayor of Chattanooga in 2001 and winning election to the Senate in 2006.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090114/COL06/901140406
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