Comments on: Dealergate: Does Obama have a dealer hit list?

By: Flagstaff

Flagstaff — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:46:25 +0000

“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.”

It doesn’t make sense, so it adds to the credibility of the conspiracy.

By: molybdanthan

molybdanthan — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:45:31 +0000

GM knows.

Each Dealership has a GM employee working at it. They report back to GM about how the biz is going. When these dealerships close, the GM employee goes back to Detroit I suppose.

Besides the campaign donation records, that’s another, safer, way to go about getting intel.

By: Flagstaff

Flagstaff — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:38:08 +0000

This event may be the reason that MOST big businesses contribute to BOTH parties and to the candidates on both sides.

By: Flagstaff

Flagstaff — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:35:51 +0000

what I read has a certain logic to it.

I still haven’t decided just exactly what Obama is trying to accomplish. If destroying the country is it, your comment supports that idea.

By: Flagstaff

Flagstaff — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:29:01 +0000

If I understand what you mean.

By: mbecker908

mbecker908 — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:30:03 +0000

are going to be with us ’till hell freezes over. As will abortion.

By: froid

froid — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:00:53 +0000

I don’t have any way to automate the process, so I can’t do it for the entire list. However, I do have a bit of time to take a random sample.

For dealships that are NOT closing, I find:
21 owners are primarily Rebublican donors.
4 owners are primarily Democratic donors.
1 owner donated to candidates of both parties equivalently.
24 owners did not make partisan donations in the OpenSecrets database.

For dealerships that ARE closing, I find:
11 owners are primarily Rebublican donors.
3 owners are primarily Democratic donors.
2 owners donated to candidates of both parties equivalently.
35 owners did not make partisan donations in the OpenSecrets database.

I must admit, these results surprised me greatly. It is possible that they came about by chance, or by bias in my sampling. But if not, the most important thing they show is that closing dealerships are less likely to be politically active at all, for either party. There does not appear to be any bias for one party over the other.

Which, if you think about it, makes sense. If dealerships were closed for non-performance, those owners would have less disposable income to commit to political causes.

I also while doing this noticed that the original article takes only those names which appear on the list more than once? Why would it do this? What does someone having a dealership and a finance company listed in Chrysler’s database mean?

By: Mike gamecock DeVine

Mike gamecock DeVine — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:28:40 +0000

enacted and that much of it won’t get repealed, esp health care.

By: Common_Cents

Common_Cents — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:05:13 +0000

You’d think Obama’s propeller heads would have factored in opportunity cost when jettisoning dealerships. However, I’m sure they have a plan to tamp down competition for Government Motors, like tariffs, taxes, fees, CCC, stuff like that.

By: Common_Cents

Common_Cents — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:01:43 +0000

By: Wade Butler

Wade Butler — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:51:34 +0000

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.

By: mbecker908

mbecker908 — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:37:51 +0000

as you well know, buyers remorse doesn’t matter for the next eighteen months. Obama will get the bulk of his agenda passed, will get ACORN, etal permanently funded, will get at least one lunatic on the SCOTUS before the next election. In all likelihood the ’10 elections won’t matter in terms of legislation and even if we toss him in ’12 it’s unlikely that any of his agenda will be rolled back – even in YOUR lifetime, you young whippersnapper you.

By: Mike gamecock DeVine

Mike gamecock DeVine — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:56:46 +0000

was a fraud and will reject future sales pitches!

By: mbecker908

mbecker908 — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:00:08 +0000

The free market has spoken and Obama was elected.

He gets the power to do whatthehellever he wants until the free market decides he shouldn’t. In which case the National Guard will be called out and we will have a revised count supervised by ACORN.

By: Rapunzel46

Rapunzel46 — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:21:57 +0000

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.

By: Steve Baetz

Steve Baetz — Wed, 27 May 2009 02:13:54 +0000

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)…

By: Erick Brockway

Erick Brockway — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:03:30 +0000

Math is so…hard.

By: Fred Maidment

Fred Maidment — Wed, 27 May 2009 01:00:17 +0000

…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…

By: Josh Painter

Josh Painter — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:40:13 +0000

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

By: lzny

lzny — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:17:44 +0000

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.