Soob

Politics, Foreign Policy, Current Events and Occasional Outbursts Lacking Couth


This bit of political gossip broke a few days ago and has since grown to just below political nightmare for the Obama administration. Beyond the willy nilly selection of dealers that seem to ignore whether or not said dealer is profitable, this bit from Reuters:

Lawyer Leonard Bellavia, of Bellavia Gentile & Associates,
who represents some of the terminated dealers, said he deposed
Chrysler President Jim Press on Tuesday and came away with the
impression that Press did not support the plan.

"It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom
of terminating 25 percent of its dealers," Bellavia said. "It
really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous
pressure from the President's automotive task force."

Remember President Obama's assertion that the government has no place in running automakers. That assertion seems to be, at last in part, in doubt.

And now Gateway Pundit's round up, which you can read in full here.
Earlier it was reported that the Obama Administration may have targeted GOP donors in deciding which Chrysler dealerships would have to close their doors.
** Last night it was discovered that a Big Dem Donor Group was allowed to keep all 6 Chrysler dealerships open.... And, their local competitors were eliminated by Obama's task force.
** The closings also tend to be in "Red" Counties where Obama lost.
Gateway Pundit is an obvious partisan but the evidence presented is remarkable even if it's not conclusive. President Obama is looking a potential political conflagration in the eye well beyond that of his recent Supreme Court selection, which may be an inadvertent and temporary media buffer. He's got some 'splainin' to do and the sooner the better. Other "small matters" like North Korea, Pakistan, Israel and Iran loom.

Image via the AP.

4 comments:

EB said...

I don't get this outrage over dealers closing:

a- there are far too many of them in the first place

b- first they want the government to bail them out (you're bailing out Wall Street, why can't you bail out Detroit?) and now they don't like the gov't trying (however dreadfully and incompetently) to make them profitable and viable in the long run

c- hasn't Chrysler been on the ropes off and on for decades now, part of the main reason its sales have been so poor for so long even in relation to Ford and GM?

The lawyer in the article is either lying or delusional. He is playing the CEO off the task force and it falls flat because the CEO's own actions and words in the recent past belie that assertion.

Now if there really is some political machinations going on here, I hope the relevant troublemakers are dealt with swiftly via public humiliation. Yet this honestly pales in importance and significance to the massive financial giveaways Paulson and Geithner have done in recent months with their Wall Street benefactors and partners.

Adrian said...

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/news-flash-car-dealers-are-republicans.html

Car dealership owners are Republican in general, so it's no surprise that most car dealerships being closed are owned by Republicans.

Unknown said...

Adrian,

You beat me to posting Nat's analyzes of the whole partisan car dealership meme.

Soob,

Per Nate's analysis, 88% of all car dealerships that donate, give to republican, while only 12% give to democrats. Hence, since most are republican to begin with, it's not surprising that the majority of those being closed are also republican. As Nate, points out, the majority staying open are also republican.

A Nony Mouse said...

Weird how we see what we expect and/or want to see.

Incidentally, the very fact that such a large number of car dealership owners are Republican is interesting in itself. Putting aside the conspiracy theory x-factor (of seeing what we expect/desire to see; and of irrationally feeling epecially victimized or targeted), one could almost make the argument that the transitional shift now occurring in American politics is indeed a "Republican-to-Democrat-shift." I.e., remove the parties and look at it from a larger perspective, and the failure of (predominantly-Republican) dealerships may indeed be a targeted effect which occurs naturally with the shift, even if they were not targeted specifically because they are Republicans.