DeVos May Lose Michigan Votes for Putting Amway Jobs in China
date: October 23, 2006
SOURCE:Bloomberg
Dick DeVos's years running Amway Corp. gave him a record of business leadership and the personal fortune to sell it to voters as the Republican candidate for Michigan governor. Now it may cost him on Election Day.
Democrats are targeting DeVos's stewardship of the direct- sales company, saying he cut 1,400 jobs in Michigan, Amway's home state, while creating jobs in China. One TV ad shows Amway workers at a factory in Guangdong as the narrator says, ``Good for Dick DeVos. But how's it working out for you?''
It's a sensitive question in Michigan, with a 7.1 percent unemployment rate, worst in the U.S., as automakers lose market share to Asian competitors. DeVos, who blames Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm for the state's woes, trailed her by 8 percentage points in an Oct. 15 Detroit Free Press poll. In July, he led by 5 percentage points.
``The response by the Democrats and Granholm -- that he created jobs in China and disinvested in the U.S. -- seems to have gotten some traction,'' said Rich Robinson, a political analyst and executive director of Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a nonpartisan group.
The focus on Amway highlights a hazard that can trip up candidates from the business world, said Jennifer Duffy, a political analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington.
``Your record is always fair game,'' Duffy said.
Republican Opportunity
The Republican Governors Association, facing the loss of governorships in big states including New York and Ohio, has called Michigan one of its best chances to take one back from Democrats. It bought more than $1 million of advertising for DeVos because ``Michigan represents a great pickup opportunity,'' said Phil Musser, the association's executive director.
The group saw Granholm as vulnerable, and DeVos willing to use his wealth to outspend her.
Through Oct. 2, DeVos and his wife, Betsy, paid about 80 percent of the $17.9 million spent on his campaign's television ads, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network. Granholm spent about $2.5 million on TV ads, and the state Democratic Party spent about $5.5 million on issue ads to help her, the monitoring group said.
Michigan's job losses have slowed but not stopped since Granholm, 47, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, was elected four years ago. In the last 2 1/2 years of three-term Republican Governor John Engler's administration, manufacturing employment shrank by 164,600, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Under Granholm, the state has lost 98,200 such jobs.
Blaming the Governor
``I don't know if you can hold the governor accountable for the failings of Ford Motor Co., but people tend to,'' Robinson said.
Granholm said she would put $2 billion into a fund to diversify Michigan's economy and develop jobs in emerging industries. DeVos said the state needs to cut business taxes and revamp regulations that discourage business.
``You know the truth of what's going on across America -- 5.1 million new jobs nationally while Michigan lost 85,000,'' DeVos told the Detroit Economic Club on Oct. 12. ``We are now in a single-state depression.''
DeVos, 51, went on the air in February with campaign commercials pointing to his Amway experience as proof he could do better. Amway, founded by his father, Richard DeVos, sells vitamins and consumer items including skin-care products.
His message -- accompanied by images of padlocked factories and for-sale signs on suburban lawns -- resonated with voters, said Ed Sarpolus of EPIC-MRA, an independent polling firm in Lansing.
Global Expansion
DeVos led Amway's overseas expansion. By 2002, when he stepped down after nine years as president, 80 percent of sales came from 45 international markets, according to his campaign biography. DeVos said he turned around the company and saved Michigan jobs.
Last month, Granholm and Democrats launched an ad campaign saying that DeVos fired Amway workers in Michigan and invested $200 million in China. Democrats also attacked his support for trade agreements that union officials blame for costing the state more than 60,000 jobs.
Republicans responded with commercials disputing any connection between lost Michigan jobs and the China venture.
``He did invest in China, but he's responsible for $1 billion in revenue coming back to Michigan,'' said DeVos's spokesman, John Truscott.
`Shifting the Focus'
Granholm carried the offensive into the candidates' first debate Oct. 2, telling voters DeVos lobbied for a $19 million tax break for Amway. DeVos failed to fight back effectively, said political analyst Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics.
``She did a good job of shifting the focus to Amway,'' Ballenger said. ``He never laid a glove on her.''
DeVos isn't the first business executive seeking public office to come under such attacks. When Republican Mitt Romney, son of former Michigan Governor George Romney, ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts in 1994, his position as founder and chief executive of Bain Capital LLC, a private investment company, cost him votes, said Duffy of the Cook Political Report.
DeVos has 15 days left to recover. Granholm has ``got the negative stuff on DeVos to stick, but the question is whether it will last until Nov. 7,'' Ballenger said.