Obama targets GOP donors in Chrysler dealer closings?

[qh4dotcom]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/hope-change-marxism-did-obama-target.html

Looks like some dealers who were also forced to close had also donated to Obama's rivals in the democratic primary.

[torchbearer]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/05/hope-change-marxism-did-obama-target.html

Looks like some dealers who were also forced to close had also donated to Obama's rivals in the democratic primary.

This should be easy to prove in a court of law.

[devil21]

I posted another blog following this too. Looks like it is gaining some steam.

[ItsTime]

I would love to see the final numbers on this

[Zippyjuan]

I found a little more about it. Seems that 90% of ALL car dealers donated primarily to Republicans so the numbers on the closures being mostly Republican donors is not disproportionate to their representation among all dealers.
http://www.poliblogger.com/?p=15901

Well, the basic answer to question asked would be to do what I suggest above: actually research the issue of the broader pool of dealership owners and see if there really is a seriously disproportionate number of Republican donors in the dealership closure pool. And, I would hasten to add, one would still have to figure out other factors, such as regionality (which often correlates to partisan affiliation) and whatever other variables might have gone into the selection of the dealerships in question.

Thankfully, Nate Silver has done at least some of the relevant research, so I don’t have to:News Flash: Car Dealers are Republicans (It’s Called a Control Group, People). Nate looks at contributions based on profession and finds the following:


Overall, 88 percent of the contributions from car dealers went to Republican candidates and just 12 percent to Democratic candidates. By comparison, the list of dealers on Doug Ross’s list (which I haven’t vetted, but I assume is fine) gave 92 percent of their money to Republicans — not really a significant difference.

In other words, there is almost a 9 to 1 chance that a given car dealer is going to be a Republican. As such, the fact that the closed Chrysler dealers are overwhelmingly Republican should be absolutely no surprise whatsoever.

In fact, it tracks with the numbers that are being used (by Ross in Nate’s post) and others are proof of a conspiracy. For example, World Net Daily:


But WND reviewed the list of 789 closing franchises and databases of political donors and found that of dealership majority owners making contributions in the November 2008 election, less than 10 percent gifted to Democrats while 90 percent gave substantial sums to Republican candidates.

The story has the subtitle “Dealers who give to Republicans much more likely to be shuttered” which is a statistics-illiterate statement, as simply having more of X than Y on a list does not automatically mean that X had a higher chance of being on the list than did Y. The probability of X to be on the list is directly related to the number of Xs in the pool from which the list is being selected. Yes, a 90-10 ratio would be odd if the original pool was 50-50. However, if the original pool is, as Nate’s numbers suggest, 90-10 to begin with, then a 90-10 sample of that pool makes perfect sense.

Indeed, to go along with something I said above, Nate rightly notes:


It shouldn’t be any surprise, by the way, that car dealers tend to vote — and donate — Republican. They are usually male, they are usually older (you don’t own an auto dealership in your 20s), and they have obvious reasons to be pro-business, pro-tax cut, anti-green energy and anti-labor. Car dealerships need quite a bit of space and will tend to be located in suburban or rural areas. I can’t think of too many other occupations that are more natural fits for the Republican Party.

[Zippyjuan]

"Open Secrets" list of donations made by car dealers in the last election cycle:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=T2300
They show that 75% of the total dollars donated by car dealers went to Republicans. It does not break it down by what percent of dealers contributed primarily to Republicans.

[MsDoodahs]

Only ONE dealership that contributed to BO is being closed.

lol...what a guy, the snake in chief.

:rolleyes:

[Zippyjuan]

Only ONE dealership that contributed to BO is being closed.

lol...what a guy, the snake in chief.

:rolleyes:

Only one on the list provided. That does not mean that was the only one. There are nearly 800 dealerships on the list to be shut down. Perhaps you can go through the entire one for us. http://www.scribd.com/doc/15436481/List-of-Chrysler-Dealers-to-be-Closed Based on contribution statistics I would expect you to find about 70 on the list who contributed to Obama. According to the Open Secrets site, car dealers only donated $133,000 to Obama in the first place.
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=T2300&cycle=2008&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U
As was pointed out, 90% of all car dealers contributed primarily to Republicans which means that about ten percent gave to Democrats and he would have only gotten a portion of that list so just one on that short of a list would be expected in a normal distribution. Nothing outside what would be expected.

My quick adding of the top 20 recipients of presidential campaign donations from all car dealers by candidate (rounding them off) I came up with $1.54 million donated with $133,000 going to Obama or less than ten percent.

[devil21]

Only one on the list provided. That does not mean that was the only one. There are nearly 800 dealerships on the list to be shut down. Perhaps you can go through the entire one for us. http://www.scribd.com/doc/15436481/List-of-Chrysler-Dealers-to-be-Closed Based on contribution statistics I would expect you to find about 70 on the list who contributed to Obama. According to the Open Secrets site, car dealers only donated $133,000 to Obama in the first place.
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=T2300&cycle=2008&recipdetail=A&sortorder=U
As was pointed out, 90% of all car dealers contributed primarily to Republicans which means that about ten percent gave to Democrats and he would have only gotten a portion of that list so just one on that short of a list would be expected in a normal distribution. Nothing outside what would be expected.

My quick adding of the top 20 recipients of presidential campaign donations from all car dealers by candidate (rounding them off) I came up with $1.54 million donated with $133,000 going to Obama or less than ten percent.

That's all well and good but still doesnt explain why dealerships were being closed at all, especially profitable ones. That's where the stink arises. If your angle is to suggest that it's coincidence that closed dealers supported the GOP, since most dealers supported the GOP, wouldnt it be just as possible to say that dealers were ordered closed because they supported the GOP? Check out the blog in the thread I posted about this too. There's much more to it than just the simple boiling down you've done. The process was politicized.

[MsDoodahs]

The process was politicized.

It sure looks that way.

Lots of good info at that link, devil, thanks for posting it.

:)

[Zippyjuan]

I cannot comment on the profitablity of the listed dealerships to Chrysler since I do not have that information but the numbers do not indicate that they were closed based on who they made political contributions to as some would suggest. You would have to have a greater deviance from the ratios found in the overall dealership populations to support that claim. Now if half the dealers donated to Dems and half to Repubs and then 80% of the closed ones had contribited to Reps then you have supporting evidence. Perhaps you can provide more information on how many were profitable to Chrysler.
Do you have anything on the actual criteria they used to make the decision? I have not seen that anywhere which would make anything about the process purely speculation.

I would agree that the government should not be telling them how to run their business (what do they know about the auto industry anyways?) and should not tell them how many dealerships (or even if they should close any of them) should be shut down.

http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2009/05/28/who-decided-which-chrysler-dealers-to-close/
From Reuters:

Chrysler said in the Reuters article that it made the decisions based on location, customer satisfaction and sales potential. The company also noted that almost half of the targeted dealerships sell other brands of cars and most rely on used vehicle sales for their business.

The White House denied suggestions that the Autos Task Force was involved in deciding which dealerships would be closed and expanded that denial to include production plants.

“The president’s task force on autos did not pick individual dealerships,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said during Thursday’s daily briefing in Washington. “It isn’t involved in picking what plants may or may not be closed.”

Asked if there was any concern about the possibility of politics tainting the decisions, Gibbs issued a broad denial.

“Let me reiterate that we don’t make those decisions,” he said. “Chrysler makes those decisions. So I’m sure you can send Chrysler the address of the blog that you refer to.”

[devil21]

Do you have anything on the actual criteria they used to make the decision? I have not seen that anywhere which would make anything about the process purely speculation.


That's also where the stink arises. There has been no publication of exact criteria under which the dealerships were closed, just vague statements about location and whatnot. If that info were to be released and were to jive with the closings then the issue could be put to rest. But no, it hasn't been and according to a lawyer that deposed Chrysler's CEO recently Chrysler did not support the plans to close dealers and stated that it was the decision of Obama's auto task force team as to which dealers were to close. There's likely no criteria because performance was obviously not a factor. If anything OTHER than performance is a criteria then the foundation for funny business has been laid. Is Chrysler trying to get out of bankruptcy or not? Closing profitable dealers makes no sense.

Anyway I dont have a dog in the fight so I can't provide you "figures" or whatever. Was just an item I came across that seems to have some legs, all things considered. I certainly do not put anything past Obama at this point. He's already proving to be worse than GWB.