White House - AP
Bush Nominee Withdraws After Kerry Remark Thu Mar 11, 7:35 PM ET
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON -
A Nebraska business executive withdrew from consideration to be President Bush's point man on manufacturing Thursday after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry raised questions about his stance on shifting U.S. jobs to foreign countries.
The Bush administration said Anthony Raimondo's withdrawal was related to Nebraska political issues and not the flap raised by the Kerry campaign.
But the nomination had appeared in doubt after Kerry's campaign had raised questions of why the Bush administration was picking someone to guide government efforts to halt the hemorrhage of American manufacturing jobs who had laid off 75 of his own workers in 2002 after announcing he was constructing a $3 million plant in China.
Raimondo, the chief executive of Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, Neb., could not be reached immediately for comment after the White House announced late Thursday that he was withdrawing from consideration for the post. Earlier in the day, he had defended his company's operations in China, saying that the Chinese facility had not meant lost jobs for his four U.S. plants but rather was an effort to sell into the Chinese market. Behlen manufacturers steel buildings and farm equipment.
"We have not shipped jobs overseas," he said. "We are manufacturing buildings inside the China market for the China market." The Kerry campaign had no immediate reaction to Raimondo's withdrawal, but earlier Kerry had criticized the appointment of a so-called manufacturing czar "too little, too late" to deal with the current crisis in American manufacturing.
The administration had scheduled a news conference for Thursday to announce its selection for the job of assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing. Bush last September had announced the position to coordinate the administration's efforts to bolster the country's beleaguered manufacturing sector.
However, the planned news conference was scrapped after Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, and other Democrats raised questions about Raimondo's stance on shifting U.S. jobs to foreign countries, a hot political issue given the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs since mid-2000.
But an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Raimondo's withdrawal was not connected to Kerry's criticism.
The official hinted at problems on Capitol Hill with getting Raimondo confirmed. During congressional consultations, in-state political issues arose that made Raimondo's confirmation impossible, the official said.
The Nebraska congressional delegation found itself split on the nomination. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat, was enthusiastic about the nomination while the state's Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, questioned on Wednesday why the White House had not consulted with the state's Republican delegation before making the announcement.
After Raimondo's withdrawal, Mike Buttry, a spokesman for Hagel, said, "This is unfortunate for everybody. Somehow the process broke down and this thing got off the tracks."
In a statement, Nelson said, "Tony Raimondo would have been a remarkable assistant secretary for manufacturing."
The flap over Raimondo was the latest in a series of economic embarrassments for the administration this year.
Gregory Mankiw, the president's chief economist, had to apologize for appearing to be insensitive to the plight of unemployed workers in comments he made about outsourcing service jobs, such as call center workers to foreign countries.
The administration backtracked on its own economic forecast, which had predicted that 2.6 million jobs will be created this year, a figure private economists said was wildly optimistic.
The administration, however, insisted that it was pushing ahead with efforts to bolster the country's beleaguered manufacturing sector.
"It's not so important when we make the announcement. It's who it is," Commerce Secretary Don Evans said in an interview on CNBC.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., took to the House floor on Thursday to defend Raimondo, and to accuse Kerry of playing election year politics.
Terry said that Raimondo's four plants in the United States employed 1,200 U.S. workers and that the China factory would employ 180 people making farm equipment for sale in China, not for export back to the United States.
"This isn't an issue of outsourcing jobs," Terry said. "This is an issue of being efficient in a global economy."
