Targeting GOP Car Dealers?
Jonah Goldberg
The Corner
I am really, really, really, skeptical about this. But if it's true, the Obama presidency would be fatally wounded.
<<< There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.
Bloggers on the Right side of the Blogosphere are up in arms over data suggesting that President Barack Obama’s White House auto industry potentates are targeting for closure Chrysler dealers with records of contributing either to Republicans like Sen. John McCain or to other Democrats in the 2008 presidential primary.
Posts at RedState, Reliapundit, American Thinker, Gateway Pundit, Joey Smith and Doug Ross pointed initially at the remarkable number of closed Chrysler dealerships whose owners happen to have been contributors to Obama opponents, mainly Republicans.
But those observations were all couched with important qualifiers, particularly that all conclusions were necessarily preliminary, pending completion of a comprehensive analysis of the political contributions by all closed Chrysler dealership owners had been done and comparison of those with contributions by dealers who are not being closed.
That said, when multiple dealers who have been closed are found to have contributed millions to Republicans and mere hundreds to Obama, the serious number-crunching cannot be completed too soon. >>>
Update: Another reason for skepticism. From a reader:
<<< Remain skeptical.
Auto dealers are generally a pro-Republican bunch, so most of their giving is of course going to be to Republicans.
Also, minority-owned dealerships also took a hit in the closings, a group that I don’t think would appear on any Obama Enemies List. Check here: seattlemedium.com
Of the 789 Chrysler dealers who were notified that their contracts will not be renewed, 38 are minority owned…
At the end of April, there were 154 minority dealers in Chrysler’s 3,181 total U.S. dealer body network….
You’ll see that 4.8% of the auto dealerships closed were minority owned.
Total percentage of all Chrysler dealerships that are minority owned? 4.8% >>>
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