Corker visits Detroit; doesn't back down on "tough love"

Earlier, we talked about the frenzy surrounding Bob Corker's visit to Detroit today, and wondered whether his star isn't sufficiently bright to place him in the orbit of such 2012 luminaries as Huck, Palin, and Romney.

The New York Times on the Tennessee Senator's steely spine:

As the Detroit show opened this week, Mr. Corker was one focus of a protest by some U.A.W. members outside the convention hall.

“Senator Corker has the mentality of someone who comes from a right-to-work state,” said Ron Lare, a former executive board member of United Automobile Workers union Local 600 in Dearborn, Mich. “I think Congressional members who opposed us were completely hostile, they want to kill all unions.”

Corker's answer?

“I truly want to see these companies flourish. The solution I offered was tough love, but it was a solution to this problem.”

That tough love?

.... "we need to cause these companies to get their capital structure and competitiveness right so we can see these great products that they’ve been working on for years sold to Americans and sold to people around the world."

And Reuters reports on the world's most awkward pseudo-car ride:

The Republican senator met with GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson and, during his visit to the GM stand at the show, sat in the Cadillac Converj, a luxury model of the all-electric Chevrolet Volt concept car.

(Ea.) Pic here.