Mitt Romney, struggling to regain the lead from Rick Santorum in national polls and facing a serious deficit in the key primary state of Michigan, has doubled down on his position against the auto industry rescue, arguing that the industry should have gone through a “managed bankruptcy,” mainly to squeeze out the United Auto Workers.

A variety of links to articles/interviews on current topics that may, or may not, be of interest.

The DNC is focused on the GM and Chrysler headlines, not so much the suppliers, where the bulk of the jobs are. More importantly, the Democrats as a whole don’t seem to be cataloging the many examples where down-ticket Republicans are claiming credit for government investments in new technology that are just now paying off in jobs.

The Obama Administration was gung ho to brag about the GM IPO last year. But if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time the White House has bragged nationally about jobs created thanks to the auto bailout.

For the moment it looks like just three things have worked to create jobs: the MIC, QE2 and other policies favoring commodities, and actual industrial policy.

I wanted to return to a detail I mentioned in yesterday’s book salon. As I noted, in his book on the auto bailout, Steven Rattner described Citi as being worried during the Chrysler negotiations that retail customers would retaliate if Citi played hard ball.

I come to Steven Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry from a very particular perspective. As a Michigander whose husband still works in the auto industry and whose town has benefited from battery subsidies, I’m a grateful direct beneficiary of the work the Obama Administration did to save the auto industry. But that also means I read this book, which might have been subtitled, “Wall Street gapes at Detroit” from the perspective, “Detroit gapes back at Wall Street.”

Austan Goolsbee, the chief economist during the Presidential campaign and a member of the economic team currently, will become the new head of the Council of Economic Advisers, replacing Christina Romer. If Romer’s tenure on the CEA is any expectation, Goolsbee will spend his time there butting heads with Larry Summers and being stymied on getting his advice to the President.

One of the biggest stories at the North American International Auto Show yesterday was not the cars, but the congressional delegation–led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer–that came to the show.

In short, even after the auto task force pulled off what I consider a least worst solution, I’m not convinced Rattner, at least, fully understands the market.