During a recent interview with two morning DJs for a rock station in Indianapolis, Indiana, Barack Obama somehow got on the topic of the car he learned to drive on. It seems that it was his grandmother’s Ford Granada. Then he made his slip. Said Obama, “It may be the worst car Detroit ever built.”
Car fanciers went bananas! U.S. News & World Report writes that some, like The Detroit News, included a screaming headline that read: “Obama Blasts Detroit, Ford Again.” Detroit News pundit Manny Lopez moaned, “... a campaign tactic that belongs in the backyard up on blocks.”
There was a silver lining from this fiasco, though. The brush up has caused editors of car journals to think about what truly is the worst car built by Detroit as well as what cars the other candidates are driving.
The lowest car ranked by US News is the Dodge Avenger. The lowest scoring car is the Jaguar X-Type, which was discontinued before Ford sold Jaguar. But cars that critics love to point to as the worst ever are the Pinto or AMG Gremlin. Hey, since the industry is global, what about the Yuko? As far as what cars the candidates are driving, Obama drives a Chrysler 300 or a GM Escalad.
Our take? As a candidate for president of the United States, one has to be very careful what he or she says. As you hold a conversation with a journalist, radio commentator, political analyst, what you say, no matter how innocent coming out of your mouth, can make you a whole lot of enemies and get the internet to buzz.
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