James Robertson works the 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift as an injection molder at Schain Mold & Engineering, a plastic-parts manufacturer in Rochester Hills, Mich., 23 miles away from his home in Detroit. Ever since his car broke down ten years ago, he’s made his way to the plant by bus and by boot, walking 21 miles each day. This means about two hours of sleep each weeknight. Blake Pollock, a vice president of UBS Bank, who specializes in wealth management, saw Robertson day after day—trudging over snow banks, walking in rain—and got in touch with the Detroit Free Press. On Sunday, the paper published Robertson’s story on its front page, moving a junior at Wayne State University in Detroit, a 19-year-old named Evan Leedy, to set up a GoFundMe page: “Help James Robertson Get a Car.” In four days, the drive has raised over $300,000—enough for ten cars.
Robertson has spent this week shuttling between interviews on national networks. On Wednesday, in Detroit himself, former Florida governor Jeb Bush pointed to this success story as a “symbol” for the future of America. Bush, who is now the Republican presidential frontrunner, was in town to speak at the Detroit Economic Club, something of a maiden speech for his unofficial 2016 campaign. He saw Robertson’s somewhat belated, indubitably media-driven triumph as a vision for post-recession, post-industrial America. Speaking after the speech with Ron Fournier of the National Journal, Bush said, "It's really a symbol of this whole idea: Can we shed a skin, basically, and renew ourselves?"
