Posted on 05/19/2009 4:28:14 PM PDT by smith5460
Chrysler announced the closing of 789 dealerships earlier this month. On today's radio program, Rush Limbaugh spoke for a few seconds about whether or not some of the dealership closings are the result of politics (campaign contributions). After hearing this, I decided to look up the contributions of the dealers on the Internet.
Here are a few examples of the campaign donations made by some of the dealers who will close their doors shortly. I'm not anywhere close to going through the entire list yet. The figures are only from the 2004, 2006, and 2008 Election cycles:
(1) Michael E. Maroone
Mr. Maroone has 6 dealerships in Fort Lauderdale, FL that will close. Since 2003, he has donated $12,700 to the RNC, $10,000 to the Florida Republican party, and $2,300 to Mitt Romney's Presidential campaign.
(2) Vernon Buchanan
Vernon Buchanan is a member of the U.S. House from Florida since 2007. One of his dealerships in Venice, FL will close. In the past 3 election cycles, Mr. Buchanan has given $50,000 to the RNC, $20,000 to the Florida Republican party, $4,000 to President Bush's campaign, and numerous amounts of money to other Republican candidates for Congress.
(3) Larry Crain
Mr. Crain's dealership in Little Rock will close. He has given $1,000 to President Bush, $1,000 to Marvin Parks (U.S. House cndidate in Arkansas), $2,300 to Mike Huckabee's Presidential campaign, and $2,300 to John McCain's Presidential run.
(4) Thomas Ganley
Mr. Ganley has 3 dealership that will close in Lakewood, Ohio. He has given $1,250 to Sen. Voinovich, $200 to Sen. Dewine, $7,750 to the National Auto Dealers Association, and $250 to Steven Latourette.
(5) Ray Huffines
Mr. Huffines will have a dealership in Denton, TX lose. He and his family are huge donors to the GOP. He has gave at least $1,000 each to Sen. Brownback, Gov. Huckabee, and Sen. McCain during their Presidential runs. He gave $3,400 to Sen. Cornyn, $5,900 to Rep. Sam Johnson, $800 to Rep. Tom DeLay, and $5,000 to Jeb Hensarling.
(6) Ronald Hoover
Mr. Hoover has 2 dealerships in Charleston, SC that will close. He gave $1,000 to Pres. Bush, $1,000 to Senator Graham, $750 to Henry Brown, $500 to Charlie Condon, and $500 to the RNC.
(7) Roger Penske
Roger Penske has a delearship in Michigan that will close soon. He has given $28,500 to the republican Senate Committee and $15,000 to the RNC. He gave $2,300 to Guiliani's Presidential run, and more money to Senators Kyl, Alxander, Collins, and Elizabeth Dole. In the interests of fairness, he also gave small amounts to Michigan politicians Kilpatrick, Dingell, and Stabenow.
(8) J.J. Fitzgerald
The most interesting find so far is John Fitzgerald, Jr. and J.J. Fitzgerald III. They have two dealerships that will close soon in Maryland.
While the previous entries gave mostly to Republicans, these two guys gave most of their donations to the Democrats.
The two gave $3,800 to Chris Van Hollen, $1,000 to Rep. Hoyer, over $3,000 to Ben Cardin, and other small amounts to Barbara Mikulski, Wynn, and Dennis Hastert.
Since 2004, they gave $300 to Wesley Clark's Presidential run during the Primaries. In the General Election, they gave $1,000 to John Kerry. In the 2008 Democratic primaries, they gave $2,000 to Hillary Clinton. When the 2008 General Election came down to John McCain vs. Barack Obama, they didn't donate any money to Barack Obama. The Fitzgeralds gave $4,600 from May to September 2008 to John McCain's Presidential run.
Ping for later
Finally you can do state by state comparisons and look for imbalances there with respect to representation.
Thank you. This job will need a few more people to look at the contributions of the dealerships (the ones who will be terminated and the survivors).
I don’t know if politics is involved in the closings, but I was trying to find out if it might be possible.
Do you remember the names of the New Jersey dealer and the dealer the business was transferred to?
The first 3 pages of Chrysler dealers are up on the blog. I will analyze more dealers and try to analyze the surviving dealers at some point.
If anyone has any information on the dealers, please let me know.
It’s just basic fascism, no reason to be surprised.
Thanks, we have family connections with Tom..He’s a great guy!
BTTT
My brother-in-law just retired from GM. He felt he was forced out and now he is terrified of life after GM. He and his wife and all the other folk in Michigan voted for Obama. They are getting what they asked for.
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Kidding, right?
The basic premise is worth examining, many here have said so from day one. But, a "good" study would cover at least 75% of all Chrysler dealerships, both those closing and staying in business. An "excellent" study would cover 100% of both.
This meager sampling has no value.
I don’t think I discouraged anyone. This sample (not yet near a study) needs significant expansion to have any value.
Most people who own dealerships are fairly intelligent, hence being a dumbcrat is an oxymoron!
Paging Glenn Beck....
It was a 40 page list, wasn’t it? Can we get any folks who have time to pick a page, check out the names, then report back?
that’s an idea.
I’ve got to bug, but if someone can find a link to the list and post it, I’ll check back later and take a page or two. If we decide to do this, we should all use the same link and mention which page(s) we’re checking out so we don’t duplicate our work :)
Me too.
I always suspected that REPUBLICAN DEALERS were the ones getting the AX.
Ahhhhhhh, what chance is there this behavior is defined under the RICO statutes?
Be interesting to hear those in law here address that question.
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