The blogs are on fire with the story that Chrysler dealerships are being closed based on whether or not the management donated to Republicans. The idea is that Obama’s “car czar” is targeting political opponents in the process of streamlining the auto industry.
One of the main sources for this “scandal” can be found here. Naturally, a non-scandal of small proportions needs to have the omnipresent Washington suffix…so this is being called Dealergate. FOX News got in on the action too.
Anyway, here is their proof:
Of the closed dealerships, there was $450,000 donated to GOP presidential candidates; $7,970 to Sen. Hillary Clinton; $2,200 to John Edwards and $450 to Barack Obama.
Busted! (right?)
As always, Nate Silver comes to the rescue. See, when bloggers dug up tremendous research proving that only Republican-leaning dealerships are being closed, they forgot one little detail: the political leanings of the dealerships not being closed.
Silver, who actually looked at all of them, came up with the chart to the left. Car dealers, as a general rule, are middle aged, white, based in areas with sufficient land for dealerships (rural/suburban), and heavily incentivized to support business, low taxes, and anti-environmental controls. In other words, model Republicans. So, if you close a lot of car dealerships, its likely you will be closing a lot of “Republican car dealerships.”
Now, given the way that DC works, it is entirely conceivable that a political decision or two was made along the way. It is also possible that when all the dealerships are looked at, more of the “saved” dealers did donate to Obama more than the closed ones. However, this could be due to a variety of factors, including coincidence or geography – not all relationships are causal. Whether this issue is real or not, it simply hasn’t been proven by the data shown so far.
One of the things that often frustrates me about politics is the lack of context around the arguments made (i.e. people yelling three word chants). Chrysler said that the process for selecting which dealerships the company would keep was based on sale volume, location, local market share and potential, customer satisfaction indices and warranty repair availability, but why listen to the company themselves?
Even the White House, in defending the closures, made no effort whatsoever to make this argument. They basically said “we had nothing to do with the closures.”
Doug Ross, the blogger pushing this story, said, “It bodes poorly for America and the rule of law.” I might say the same about him.
