Obama drives home union support

WASHINGTON -- In a politically sizzling attack, President Barack Obama accused his Republican presidential challengers Tuesday of abandoning the American worker and took credit for the auto industry's resurgence while singling out GOP opposition to the taxpayer-backed rescue of General Motors and Chrysler that he helped engineer.

Speaking to a raucous audience of United Auto Workers, Obama said assertions by the Republican candidates that union members profited from the taxpayer-paid rescue are a "load of you-know-what." He did not mention his critics by party or by name, but the speech's delivery and content had all the makings of a political stump speech.

Even the timing had political overtones, purposefully delivered just as voters in Michigan went to the polls to cast their ballots in the auto-making state's Republican nominating contest.

Union president Bob King praised Obama as "the champion of all workers" who "saved our jobs and saved our industry," an introduction that elicited chants of "four more years!" from a crowd estimated at 1,700 UAW members.

In highlighting the auto industry's comeback, Obama drew a distinct contrast with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, both of whom have said they would not have used government money to save GM and Chrysler.

Still, the White House took umbrage at suggestions that the speech was political, insisting it was a policy address about the state of the auto industry.

"These are substantive policy issues that affected hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "And they're very worth speaking about, as president."

As recently as Sunday, Romney said Obama favored the UAW in the bailout and that the president was "paying off the people that supported him." Santorum has expressed a similar sentiment.

Obama left no doubt they were his targets.

"You've got folks saying, 'Well, the real problem is, what we really disagreed with was the workers, they all made out like bandits; that saving the American auto industry was just about paying back unions,' " Obama said. "Really? Even by the standards of this town, that's a load of you-know-what."

He noted that under the agreement to use taxpayer money to save GM and Chrysler, union members had to agree to reduced wages and that thousands of retirees saw reductions in their health care benefits. "But they're still talking about you as if you're some special interest that needs to be beaten down," Obama said.

Romney's campaign hit back, arguing that Obama is attacking because he fears him most among the Republican candidates. Spokeswoman Andrea Saul blamed Obama for lost jobs, lost homes and lost businesses in Michigan.