Mich. dealership slams Shelby in ad

A Michigan car dealership is using Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and southern Republicans as boogeymen in a new ad campaign.

Les Stanford Chevrolet Cadillac in Dearborn, owned by brothers Paul and Gary Sanford, has released commercials showing Shelby, a fierce opponent of bailouts for U.S. automakers, warning of the industry’s inevitable decline.

“We’re wasting our time to try to keep them alive,” Shelby says of GM and Chrysler. “We’re wasting our time and taxpayers’ money,” he intones in another clip, adding: “It won’t matter, we’re postponing…the inevitable.”

A mock interviewer then asks the dealership owners, “How that makes you feel?”

“Angry,” Paul Sanford answers. “And I’ll tell you, I’m tired of their hypocrisy. American workers built this country, and American workers built the best product in the world. And we sell them right here: Chevrolet and Cadillac.”

In another ad, the interviewer sets up a stark regional conflict: “Some of these southern senators have stated that the American car companies don’t even deserve to be in business anymore. What’s your response to that?”

“They say our autoworkers are overpaid and under-skilled?” Paul Sanford answers. “They ought to look in the mirror.”

Many southern states are home to foreign auto plants, companies that are in better economic shape than the Michigan-based “Big Three.”

“We’re being vocal because I’m tired of being slapped around by politicians,” Paul Sanford told the Detroit Free Press. “Sen. Shelby is saying, ‘The hell with the Big Three.’ I think that’s tragic, I really do.”

Watch some of the ads below: