Did Chrysler Kill "Republican" Dealers, Or What?

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

TTAC’s Best and Brightest spent some time this weekend examining the question of whether or not Chrysler and GM needed to terminate nearly 2000 dealers between them, both pro and con. We didn’t look at WHICH dealers got the axe, for two reasons. First, despite receiving nearasdammit $20 billion in taxpayer money (so far), GM has steadfastly refused to release a list of the 1100 dealers emailed their walking papers. The Huffington Post blog (of all people) has a partial tally, but GM ain’t gonna spill. Which, if you think about it, protects car dealers at the expense of taxpayers, who might not know they’re buying a car from a dead dealer trading. Bastardos! That said, when GM’s Marketing Maven, Mark LeNeve, announced the cull, he claimed that the business brains who made the cut based their decisions largely (if not exclusively) on volume. Chrysler, in contrast, produced a list of the dispossessed—and it’s all over the show. Urban, suburban, large, small, medium; the logic underpinning their choices is an enigma wrapped in a “Dear John” email. Or is it? The internets are abuzz with the tin foil hat-wearing theory that the cuts were made based on partisan politics. Check it out . . .

After receiving a tip about the possibility of political considerations affecting, The Free Republic did a little test.

I took all dealer owners whose names appeared more than once in the list. And, of those who contributed to political campaigns, every single one had donated almost exclusively to GOP candidates. While this isn’t an exhaustive review, it does have some ominous implications if it can be verified . . .

Consider the partial list of Chrysler dealership owners, listed below. You’ll notice that all were opponents of Barack Obama, most through sponsorship of GOP candidates and organizations, but a handful through Barack’s Democrat rivals (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in 2008, for example).

• Vernon G. Buchanan: $147,450 to GOP candidates and organizations


• Wallace D. Alley and Family: $4,500 to GOP.


• Robert Archer: $4,600 to GOP and conservative causes.


• Homer S. Higginbotham and Family: $2950 to GOP.


• James Auffenberg and Family: $28,000 to GOP; $6,000 to one Democrat candidate.


• Michael Maroone and Family: $60,000 to GOP; $8,500 to two Democrat candidates.


• Jerome Fader: $6,500 to Democrats; $2,500 to Independent Joe Lieberman.


• Stephen Fay and Family: $13,500 to GOP.


• William Numrich: $20,000 to GOP.


• Robert Carver: $10,000 to Democrats including $1,950 to Hillary Clinton, nothing to Barack Obama.


• Robert and Linda Rohrman: $24,000 to GOP.


• Frank Boucher, Jr. and Family: $18,000 to GOP, $1,000 to one Democrat candidate.


• Scott Bossier: $4,300 to GOP.


• Todd Reardon: $17,000 to GOP; $2,000 to one Democrat candidate.


• Russ Darrow and Family: $78,000 to GOP.


• Bradford Deery and Family: $24,700 to GOP.


• Charles Gabus and Family: $30,000 to GOP.


• Brian Smith: $15,500 to GOP.


• Michael Schlossman: $14,000 to GOP; $14,000 to three Democrats ($12,500 to Sen. Russ Feingold).


• Don Hill: $11,000 to GOP; $12,800 to conservative incumbent Rep. Heath Shuler.

Bottom line (or not):

I have thus far found only a single Obama donor (and a minor one at that: $200 from Jeffrey Hunter of Waco, Texas) on the closing list.

Even if this is a simple reflection of your average car dealer’s political leaning, there’s a lot of confusion out there amongst ex-Chrysler dealers as to why some got the chop and others didn’t. As you’d expect, as Automotive News reports, emotions are running high.

“I’m too stubborn to quit, and I’m too stupid to go away,” said the owner of Richard Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge in the western Chicago suburb of St. Charles. “I’m going to keep selling cars and fight this to the end.”

“We don’t fit the guidelines for closure,” Massarelli said. “We’re profitable, we’ve never missed a payment and we’ve done everything Chrysler has ever asked us to help them out.”

“Every time Chrysler said they needed us, we were there for them,” Massarelli said. “Now they won’t even return my calls.”

From a PR perspective, this is a channel stuffed with not good. Severed Chrysler dealers are making a fuss in Congress and federal bankruptcy court, where they’re trying to halt Judge Arthur Gonzalez’ approval (on Wednesday) of the asset sale which will create “new” Chrysler. Perhaps this is a disinformation campaign. Perhaps not. Either way, even if the fix (as in canine fertility) was in, it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop the train from leaving the station.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • John Horner John Horner on May 28, 2009

    Nobody does political statistical analysis better than FiveThirtyEight.com. His backstory on wikipedia makes for very interesting reading, and gives another look at how the traditional media is getting trounced on quality by the best of modern bloggers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiveThirtyEight.com

  • Brian26 Brian26 on May 31, 2009

    Let me get this right - the Task Force goes to a whole lot of trouble to protect the unions, then uses unidentifiable and (un-articulated)criteria to simply "lop off a chunk" from a group that are statistically opposed to the guy that formed the task force. Yeah, I got no problem with that...

  • EBFlex China can F right off.
  • MrIcky And tbh, this is why I don't mind a little subsidization of our battery industry. If the American or at least free trade companies don't get some sort of good start, they'll never be able to float long enough to become competitive.
  • SCE to AUX Does the WTO have any teeth? Seems like countries just flail it at each other like a soft rubber stick for internal political purposes.
  • Peter You know we’ve entered the age of self driving vehicles When KIAs go from being stolen to rolling away by themselves.
  • Analoggrotto TTAC is full of drug addicts with short memories. Just beside this article is another very beautiful article about how the EV9 was internationally voted by a renowned board of automotive experts who are no doubt highly educated, wealthy and affluent; the best vehicle in entire world. That's planet earth for you numbskulls. Let me repeat: the best vehicle in the world is the Kia EV9. Voted, and sealed, and if you try to deny it Fanny Willis is ready to prosecute you; but she will send her boyfriend instead because she is busy.
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