Analysis
This story is based upon a new ad campaign by the Michigan Democrats who are making claims about job losses at Amway while Dick DeVos was CEO, and that during the same time DeVos invested $200 million in China. Both of the claims from the democratic Party were not verified in the story. Instead, readers get a response from Amway and DeVos’s spokesperson John Truscott who makes claims about this issue as well. Why doesn’t the reporter seek out an independent perspective, from someone who is non-partisan and not connected to Amway?
Article Text
The state Democratic Party today launched a television commercial hammering Republican gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos for his record as president of Amway.
The ad comes days after the company unveiled image-burnishing commercials of its own to counter the criticism it has faced as DeVos seeks the state’s highest office.
The 30-second Democratic spot, airing statewide, claims that as president of Amway Corp., now Alticor Inc., DeVos laid off 1,400 workers and invested $200 million in China. DeVos served as president of the company, co-founded by his father, Rich DeVos, from 1992 to 2002.
By contrast, the ad claims, Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm traveled to Asia to bring $200 million in investment back to Michigan.
“(DeVos) talks about being a successful businessman. That is the mantra we’ve heard for almost a year and a half,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer, who planned a press conference today in front of Alticor headquarters in Ada announcing the ad. “We believe he’s part of the problem of outsourcing, not the solution.”
Rob Zeiger, director of corporate communications for Alticor, said the ad uses “clever, lawyered-up wording to create a thoroughly false impression of our company’s actions and our impact.”
“They ground up some facts and mixed in some fiction,” Zeiger said. “That’s how Grandma made baloney.”
The company’s Chinese investment and U.S. layoffs were separate, unrelated events to keep the company competitive, Zeiger said. Alticor imports nothing to the United States from its manufacturing operations in China. The company created a factory and about 170 retail shops in China because of the requirements of Chinese law.
Alticor has nearly 800 white collar workers, 600 manufacturing employees and 3,600 retail clerks in China.
Democratic claims that Alticor has “outsourced” jobs are not true, added DeVos spokesman John Truscott. Outsourcing usually means shutting down a factory in this country and sending those jobs overseas.
“This is a company that did it right,” Truscott said. “They didn’t go to China for cheap labor, and they didn’t send any production over there for other markets. All the production in China stays there.”
Democrats have raised DeVos’ record on China from the earliest days of his campaign, looking to benefit from unfavorable public impressions of the Amway name.
Last week, Alticor announced an unusual television, radio and print campaign, defending the company’s image amidst the election-year rhetoric.
The ads don’t mention DeVos, Granholm or the governor’s race. Instead, they feature employees talking about Alticor and their jobs. This is the first time in 20 years the company has run television commercials.
Brewer charged that the Alticor commercials amount to campaign ads for DeVos.
Zeiger said his company’s commercials aren’t political and are simply designed to keep Alticor from becoming “collateral damage” in the fall election.
“If they were talking about Dick DeVos as a businessman and not dropping our name in at every chance, we would be silent,” Zeiger said.
Also today, the DeVos campaign planned to unveil another ad to “address the lies by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm about China.”
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