Finest nutcase conspiracy theory I’ve read all day.

If the administration and Chrysler wanted to choose the most effective dealerships to stay open, they could have let the market run it’s course. Given that they chose which ones to close themselves, you can bet something other than costs and profits drove their decision-making process. Based on this article, it looks like they weren’t very careful about hiding it. This looks to be classic rent-seeking by Obama’s political donors.

That being said, I have some more questions. What was the political makeup of those not flagged for shutdown? I don’t know how the political spectrum of car-dealerships runs, but I suspect it is fairly heavily Republican. In other words, we need a control sample.

Looking forward to hearing more on this.

of private businesses is bad enough, and now this. If this is true, I wonder how Obama’s apologists will spin it. How could they possibly justify the government forcing people to close their businesses and ruining the lives of ordinary citizens for political expediency? But, I’m they’ll figure something out.

that every dealer on the closing list (with one exception) who had donated to to political campaigns had contributed to Republicans.

How’s that Obama Orange Kool Aid you’re drinking?

- JP

Why on earth would this surprise anyone?? He was raised on Chicago politics for Pete’s sake! Virtually everything he has done since taking office hinges on intimidation. Please, reflect on how he has approached TARP, GM, Chrysler, the banks. He has a vision. He intends to accomplish it. Those standing in his way will be crushed or removed. Is there an answer to this? Ultimately, I suspect it will come down to each citizen having to choose between submitting or standing firm. I believe the answer to President Obama’s agenda is simple.

No!

I find it really hard to believe that the President’s Auto Task Force is actually making decisions at this fine a level of detail. I would be shocked if anyone but Chrysler’s own bean-counters were choosing the individual dealers and doing so based on really concrete metrics – ie, sales, proximity to other Chrysler dealers, proximity to competitors’ dealers, etc.

I think the idea that people in the administration our targeting individual dealers for loss of franchise based on who they donated to politically to be pretty far-fetched and, frankly, were it happening, I think that it’s impossible that the practice wouldn’t have leaked.

-exits

N/T

With as deep a pool of donors Our Man Barry had in 2008, it seems a very delicate task to play favorites at every step of the two-pronged corporatizing and socializing process.

Do I doubt this is the plan? Not at all. There is a reason big business has sided with democrats – they’re not idiots, and they’d rather keep their interests protected. Just look at PAC spending and who gets left behind – those without PACs.

But I think it will start to get more and more challenging to keep everything “straight” of who gets protection when, without stories creeping out to press about The List. As media outlets get desperate for ratings, reporters from MSM will dig into the story – perhaps it will get stifled before the end of a newsday, but it will make it out eventually.

This is a disturbing report, but it is missing one key piece of information to determine if it indicates a pattern. What is the base rate of political contribution across all dealerships?

Without knowing that, it is possible that nearly all closed dealerships donated to Republican candidates because nearly all dealerships of any kind donated to Republican candidates. I’m not saying this is necessarily true; I don’t know. I’m just saying that until that is known, the information on the contribution patterns of the closing dealerships does not itself show a bias.

I see a link to the list of dealerships in the original article, so someone could do this work, but I don’t know where to look for political contributions. Any suggestions?

I have obtained two pdf files from the bankruptcy court filings.

One pdf is the list of all dealers to be closed.

The second is the list of all dealers which are to remain operational.

The second is just as important as the first since you need to compare ALL of the dealers for donation patterns. Then comparative statistics can be done to determine any extent of bias.

So far the revealed sample on the blogs is small but almost totally in the camp of non Obama donations.

I will be working a full cross reference to remove all doubt.

The pdfs have both been converted to text format here already and I am in the process of editing out the page headers and such to get just the dealer listings.

Then I will be formatting them up to comma delimited format for import into both Excel and MS Access.

I have a running full copy of the FEC data base and will be doing a full cross reference when I get the dealer data in the proper form.

Is Obama going to be the presenter at the next annual shareholder meeting?

What was the party make up of the surviving dealers? If the vast majority of dealers were Republican donors, there is no leg to stand on. I would be curious how the survival rate of looked from a party affiliation perspective.

it takes a while. The surviving dealers don’t necessarily have to be Dem donors to make the case, however. Just *not* Republican donors. If there are few GOP contributers among them, they will stand in stark contrast to the closing dealers.

That may not be proof, but it would be comelling evidence.

- JP

…or Geely Auto, I’d be salivating at the opportunity to snap-up all these dealers.

Ditto for in-the-US-already Kia, Isuzu, Suzuki and Daewoo. GM & Chrysler dropping 3,700-plus dealerships is the best thing that could happen to these automakers.

Ironically, such a move will increase the level of competition and choice for American car buyers. That is good news for American consumers, but awful news for its auto industry…

About a week or so ago, Neil Cavuto interviewed a few NJ Chrysler Dealers… one was in business for more than 50 years, starting with his granddad. He was a high selling dealership and received the axe from Chrysler, only to find out a week later that his dealership franchise was being given to a guy 2 miles down the road AT NO COST!! So the Obama Administration’s “panel” STOLE his business and GAVE it to someone else… or should I say…. “redistributed” it.

I have to wonder if the recipient was a minority or a failing business owner (ala Atlas Shrugged)?

You have to wonder if these other dealerships have the same problem, their franchises “redistributed” to Obama supporters (read jockstraps)…

will likely go bankrupt, why would anyone think Obama wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to give them a little help over the brink.

Chrysler and GM make money from their dealer network, if anything they should want more dealers, not fewer, but the one’s who are being dropped are being told they cannot sell their new inventory as new or offer warranties for the cars they sell. They are being stuck with car and parts inventories… of course if they were big-time Republicans O would love to have them no longer able to donate large sum of money to the GOP.

Can anyone even imagine that Obama would close down any dealership owned by a large contributor?
Someone, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Chrysler and GM closings knows the real answer.