Prius politics

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One place where buying a fuel-efficient car might not get you extra mileage is on the campaign trail.

The United Auto Workers is accusing Republican John McCain of ‘flip-flopping’ on the question of who bought his daughter Meghan’s Toyota Prius.

According to a New York Times article cited by the UAW, McCain told a crowd at College of Charleston last fall that he bought the car. In an interview with a Michigan TV station this week, however, he said his daughter ‘bought it, I believe, herself.’

Why should it matter? Well, the Prius hybrid gets the best gas mileage of any car sold in the U.S. by a major automaker. It’s also made in Japan, where the UAW’s membership ranks are pretty thin. (It doesn’t help that the UAW has had almost zero luck over the years signing up workers at Toyota’s assembly plants in the U.S.)

Although Toyota and other Japanese automakers are feeling the sting of the current economic slowdown, they’re faring better than their American competitors — especially among buyers in search of gas savings.

‘At a time when manufacturers are struggling under the failed Bush-McCain economic policies of the last eight years, American workers and manufacturers need a president who will be straight with what he says and consistent in his support,’ the UAW said in a news release.

The UAW supports McCain’s Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, who has been a strong advocate of federal aid to Detroit, which the union also backs. McCain also has said that he favors federal action to help U.S. automakers.

Attempts to get a comment from the McCain camp were unsuccessful. McCain, by the way, drives a made-in-America Cadillac CTS sedan.

—Martin Zimmerman