After 4 years of the Obama administration being pilloried from post to post over controversial legislation, such as universal health care, the removal of the US military’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy on homosexuality in the services, as well as the President’s broken promise and failure to close down Guantanamo Bay, it now looks like one of the policies initiated by the Democratic Party in 2008 may well save his bacon; in-fact some suggest that the consequences of the policy will turn out to be so effective that the Republican Party might as forget about 2012 and start gearing up for 2016…

On the 1st of May 2009 one of America’s most successful companies, Chrysler, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Having been hit hard by the recession and the collapse of western financial markets, the company had to go cap in hand to the US government and asked for a $12.5bn bailout. Three years later and Chrysler has repaid all of the debts owed to the American government, and now one year later the auto giant has announced net profits of $473m – the company’s biggest first quarterly profit in 13years.

According to the latest financial reports Chrysler’s first quarter sales have risen by 39%, its’ market share has increased by 2.1% to 11.5% and the company as a whole is expected to make $1.5bn in 2012.

Thanks to Chrysler’s financial results and similar other trends reported by Ford and GM, the Obama administration has begun an all-out assault on the states of Michigan and Ohio, suggesting that 1 out of 8 jobs in both of these states involve the auto industry and would have been at risk had it not have been for the bail-out – estimates place the total amount of jobs that would have been lost at around the 1 million mark.

With 37 Electoral College votes at stake, Michigan and Ohio may well make all the difference between who gets to sit in the Oval Office and who gets to be a one-term president, or end up that other guy who was once governor of Massachusetts and ran for president…