Analysis
This story was based upon a press conference held by the Michigan Democrats focusing again on Amway and China. The sources cited in the story are Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer, an Alticor spokesperson and DeVos’s spokesperson John Truscott. Would readers learn anything new from this article? How was the story framed and was there any bias in this story? Does the Press reporter verify any of the claims made by the candidates?
Article Text
GRAND RAPIDS — Democrats hope a tiny packet of old tissues will bring Republicans and their candidate for governor to tears.
It was supposed to be a political bombshell. Instead, it was a dud that fizzled, Republicans responded.
At a Wednesday press conference, Democratic Party chairman Mark Brewer displayed an Amway-branded pocket packet labeled as “Made in China.”
Brewer said it is the smoking gun that links Dick DeVos to Democrats’ charges that his company imported Chinese goods while cutting its Michigan work force.
Critics laughed. The tissues were made 17 years ago in China by an outside vendor, Amway spokeswoman Kate Makled said.
“What else is he going to produce? A pair of M.C. Hammer pants?” she said, describing the billowy, yellow parachute pants that were the signature duds of the early 1990s rapper.
Brewer acknowledged the tissues were purchased “several years ago” from a West Michigan Amway distributor. He said he did not know how old the tissues were.
But Brewer maintained their existence calls into question DeVos’ integrity. Critics say it is Brewer who distorted the truth.
As support, he produced statements by DeVos, reported in various media, in which DeVos assured voters his company did not ship Chinese-made products to the U.S. DeVos was Amway president from 1992 to 2002.
“He’s said it hundreds of times,” Brewer said.
But when pressed, Brewer said DeVos may have been talking specifically about whether the Amway plant in China was shipping products here — not products sourced at non-Amway plants in China.
Making a distinction
An example: Brewer pointed to a DeVos campaign e-mail that read: “You will never pick up an Alticor/Amway product for sale in the U.S. and read: Made in China.”
But the sentence before that indicates DeVos was talking about Amway’s plant. It reads: “Chinese laws require making products in China, in order to sell in China. China profits support Michigan jobs. Winning the challenge of global competition and thereby making more jobs here in Michigan is what Dick DeVos is all about.”
Amway’s Makled said procuring products from non-Amway plants overseas is a “standard business practice.”
“The company has stated all along: We don’t import any of our products from our plant in China for the U.S. market,” she said.
The DeVos campaign press secretary John Truscott said Democrats will do anything to detract from Michigan’s economic performance.
“Since we’re talking about tissue, Mark Brewer blew it,” he said.
Trade mission planned
The political wrangling came on the same day that the U.S. Commerce Department announced that executives from 25 U.S. companies, including Alticor Inc., will travel to China next month as part of a trade mission aimed at boosting exports and trimming America’s huge trade deficit.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who will lead the Nov. 13-17 mission to Beijing and Shanghai, said the companies chosen for the trip, ranging from Home Depot to Westinghouse Electric, represent a cross-section of American companies that are seeking to do business in China.
He said the companies were chosen to highlight various issues U.S. companies face in trying to crack the Chinese market.
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