McCain meets Ohio officials on DHL closure

[sabra]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-08-07-mccain-ohio-dhl_N.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican John McCain is meeting officials in the key swing state of Ohio on Thursday over the potential loss of 8,000 jobs in a town where German-owned DHL is closing a shipping hub.

His campaign manager, then a lobbyist, had helped facilitate the company's purchase of the U.S. owners of the facility in 2003.

The meeting reflects the deep concern of American voters about the troubled U.S. economy — growing unemployment, big jumps in food and fuel prices, home mortgage foreclosures — which have become the campaign focus of both McCain and his Democratic opponent Barack Obama.

Five years ago, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis lobbied Congress to accept DHL's proposal to buy Airborne Express, which operated its domestic hub in Wilmington, in southwest Ohio.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator, also had a role in the DHL deal with Airborne Express. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, McCain urged then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens to abandon proposed legislation that would have prohibited foreign-owned carriers from flying U.S. military equipment or troops. Airborne Express said the measure was aimed at torpedoing its merger with DHL.

[rurallib]

1. Well the local officials should be really pissed at Johnny.

[cliffordu]

2. I'm wondering how Johnny is going to spin this...or whether he'll just ignore it...

[napi21]

3. I don't know how HE'LL spin it, but if it were me, I'd say that all transportation businesses

are having great difficulty now because of fuel prices, and even if the merger hadn't happened, there's no reason to believe THEY would be able to survive this either.