New Romney ad in Ohio touts Detroit News, Iacocca endorsements

Ohio is on everyone’s mind as Election Day approaches. (Cartoon: Henry Payne/Detroit News)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is out with a new advert in Ohio called “Who Will Do More?” — a defense of his position on the GM and Chrysler auto bailouts.

“Who will do more for the auto industry,” the ad begins, the optics an allusion to the days when the Detroit Three were running strong — suburban lawns, sudsy, just-washed cars, tanned, summer skin. Message: I really am a car guy. One is surprised not to see former American Motors boss George Romney’s visage, there to drive the point home.

Mitt may not come around as much anymore — this, despite Michigan’s trees, which clock in at “just the right height” — but when he needs to fend off President Barack Obama’s charges in Ohio, that Romney is not “one of us,” he dusts off his Midwestern bona fides, citing endorsements from both The Detroit News and former Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca, both believers in Romney’s ability to turn around the American economy.

Nate Silver, owner of the 538 blog that The New York Times currently hosts, forecasts Ohio as having roughly a 1 in 2 chance of deciding the next president. Poor Michigan has only a 0.1 percent chance of determining the election, just under Maine District 2, a 0.2 percent. But if Mitt Romney does find a way to pull out a win in Ohio, let the record show he needed a little help from his home state to do it. (What Romney will do about the fact that he’s a Michigan fan — fightin’ words, in Ohio –  is beyond me. Some things Ohioans just don’t let a man recover from.)

VIDEO: Who Will Do More?

The Detroit News: Mitt Romney for President

Lee Iacocca: Why I’m endorsing Mitt Romney