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The Big Three Automakers are following American finance into the breach to beg for cash, but an even grizzlier fate awaits. The industry’s supplication before Congress for another $25 billion in immediate aid brought little but bad headlines and a delay of Thursday’s vote on diverting some Troubled Assets Relief Program money to the industry. Auto-sector assistance now has less than half the public’s support, making it even less popular than the financial bailout already in motion, polls say. GM could be out of money by the end of year. Why aren’t more people buying the need to shore up this former economic jewel? Maybe because GM and the auto sector are telling the wrong story, the wrong way, at the wrong time.

The failure isn’t for want of trying. GM has set up a dedicated Web site and taken out full-page ads to counter what it says are stale myths about bloated labor costs and gassy vehicles. With the United Auto Workers, they’ve reached out to auto dealers, parts suppliers, Rotary Clubs, and retirees. One executive member of Detroit’s Wayne County even dipped into his surplus campaign cash to run pro-industry radio ads in Alabama, home to ranking Republican Senate banking committee member Richard Shelby, who opposes aid. Call it “naked Astroturfing”: The companies aren’t shy about calling on all hands to apply the pressure.

They’ve all got the same song sheet: “We’ve changed! Without us, the economy is toast! And we’ve got a pile of stats and facts to prove it!” The talking points tout a 35 percent reduction in structural costs and the array of flex-fuel and hybrid cars the company produces. And this corporate-style video pitch—with bloopy computer sounds and zooming graphics—piles on ever-more fantastic numbers (from 239,000 directly employed people to 13 million Americans dependent on the industry) to make the case that without aid, “a collapse is imminent”:

Yes, some of the commentariat has jumped aboard. But doesn’t this dual refrain—reform pledges and the industry’s importance to the economy—sound familiar? It’s what we heard months ago to justify aid to the banks. (By taking executive jets to congressional hearings, auto executives even repeated the unfortunately serendipitous excesses of the financial sector with their expensive bonuses and getaway weekends.) Yet our financial fix seems to have mended little—while we and Congress have hardened to further threats backed up by big numbers. To secure longer-term public support, car makers need to truly connect.