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.
Great work sir!
I have shared your blog link among my Facebook friends.
Anything I can do to help?
Yup, and why not?
The insidious sots on the left succeeded politicizing every damned thing under the sun to benefit themselves, 99.999% of it outright lies.
Depending on how the mosaic fills in this allegation c/would quickly morph into an indictmentS.
A chance to get hold of a few short hairs & *twist* might just be enough to bring the entire charade crashing down around the feet of Caesar himself. ;^)
Let's see what our courageous leaders do with this, shall we?
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
bttt for later
Here is a link to the 41 page report on Chrysler delaership closings:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/business/Chrysler_dealers_list.pdf
I have completed a review of the first 3 pages and posted the findings on my blog (link found on #14).
Perhaps you could help then. I’m working on PAGE 7. Would you care to start on PAGE 8?
Bottom line: These dealers didn't pay their "protection money."
NOW... for this to have some clout, we need to compare these numbers with a sampling of non-closing dealers. Maybe it is the norm that they gave zippo to Bamster. We need to find this out.
(BTW do you want me to PM you the little bit I did from Page 7?)
Sure thing. Send me whatever you have. Thanks for your help.
What we're going to do is get a statistical comparison between the work you've done and the same thing for a random smattering of non-closing Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge dealerships.
We're going to see if there is a significant difference between what the average to-be-closed dealer gave and to whom, and what the average non-closing dealer gave and to whom.
Three NON-closing dealerships:
$2,250 Republicans
$3,500 Democrats
($0 to Obama)
They all give to “DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION”, so I think we can write that off as a “neutral” PAC in this context.
These are hard because you have to manually track down the name of the owner in some cases.
There are three Chrysler dealerships in the Little Rock metro area:
1. Cook Jeep Chrysler
2. Crain Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep
3. Frank Fletcher
Frank Fletcher will remain open while Cook Jeep-Chrysler and Crain CDJ will be forced to close.
Here is the data for the three dealerships since the 2004 Election cycle:
Frank and Chris Fletcher gave $8,000 to Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D), $1,000 to Gov Mike Huckabee (2008 Presidential run), $500 to Marvin Parks (R), and $500 to Mickey Stumbaugh (R). Their dealerships will remain open.
Ethel Cook gave no money to campaigns or groups. Cook Jeep Chrysler will close.
Joy, Larry Sr., and Larry, Jr. (Crain family) gave $4,600 to Sen. McCain (2008 Presidential run), $4,600 to Gov. Mike Huckabee (2008 Run), $1,000 to President George W. Bush (2004 Run), $1,500 to NADA, $250 to Marvin Parks (R), and $207 to the Arkansas Democratic Party.
The Cook dealership is 9 miles away from the Fletcher dealership. The Crain dealership is 15 miles away from Fletcher.
And who in our "free" press (other than FOX) would cover it?
This is fun! Here's my research from another group, all of which will remain open.
VAN HOOGSTRAAT, JOHN BALLWIN, MO 63011 ROYAL GATE DODGE INC DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 10/06/1999 1000.00 99034922872 VAN HOOGSTRAAT, JOHN ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 ROYAL GATE DODGE CHRYSLER JEEP/OW REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE 08/22/2008 1000.00 28933154161 VAN HOOGSTRAAT, JOHN ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 ROYAL GATE DODGE INC DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 12/12/2000 500.00 21036810595 VAN HOOGSTRAAT, JOHN A MR. ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 ROYAL GATE DODGE INC/PRESIDENT DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 12/11/2003 1000.00 24990392840 06/18/2004 1000.00 24961820903 06/30/2006 1000.00 26950274506 VAN HOOGSTRAAT, JOHN MR. ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 ROYAL GATE DODGE CHRYSLER JEEP/OW REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE 09/29/2008 1000.00 28992793306 WINSTEAD, MARK K MR. BALLWIN, MO 63021 ROYAL GATE DODGE INC/EXECUTIVE BUSH, GEORGE W VIA BUSH-CHENEY '04 (PRIMARY) INC 04/27/2004 250.00 24961374194 Total Contributions: 6750.00 ******************************************** GLENDALE CHRYSLER JEEP DODGE MERLO, CARLO CHESTERFIELD, MO 63005 CARLO PLUMBING HOUSE, TED CLINT (Dem, MO-02) VIA TED HOUSE FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE 10/02/2000 500.00 20036441342 ******************************************** LUM'S AUTO CENTER LUM, DAVID ASTORIA, OR 97103 LUM'S AUTO CENTER WU, DAVID (Dem, OR-01) VIA DAVE WU FOR US CONGRESS 02/04/2004 1000.00 24991068606 LUM, DAVID ASTORIA, OR 97103 LUM'S AUTO CENTER INC DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 12/31/1997 500.00 98032641708 01/11/2000 250.00 20035294879 LUM, DAVID ASTORIA, OR 97103 LUM'S AUTO CENTER/OWNER WU, DAVID VIA DAVE WU FOR US CONGRESS 08/21/2006 500.00 26950584754 07/17/2007 500.00 27990795190 05/15/2008 1000.00 28991451140 LUM, DAVID MR. ASTORIA, OR 97103 LUM'S AUTO CENTER INC/GENERAL MAN DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 04/03/2007 1000.00 27990072134 09/30/2008 2500.00 28992646902 LUM, DAVID MR. ASTORIA, OR 97103 LUM'S AUTO CENTER INC/PRESIDENT DEALERS ELECTION ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DEALERS ASSOCIATION 12/17/2004 1000.00 25980211383 01/06/2006 1000.00 26980113287 Total Contributions: 9250.00 *********************************************** TYLER, TIM NILES, MI 49120 TYLER AUTOMOTIVE LUGAR, RICHARD G (Republican, Indiana) VIA FRIENDS OF DICK LUGAR INC 08/12/2004 250.00 24020743403
Most newspapers will print your letter-to-the-editor.
So far, you can see the numbers that smith and I have put together. Admittedly it's a small smattering.
If everyone could pick three NON-CLOSING dealers at random, and post the info here, that means very little work for any one person. Thing is, most people would rather complain than do even a small amount of grunt work. I for one am tired of just complaining.
I'm sorry, I'm a little frustrated.
Information on Las Vegas dealerships:
4 dealerships are closing in Las Vegas. They are FT Automotive II and IV, Integrity Chrysler-Plymouth, and Jim Marsh Chrysler-Jeep.
3 dealerships will remain open: Towbin Dodge, Chapman Dodge, and Chapman Chrysler-Dodge.
Of the 4 dealerships that are closing, Jim Marsh was the only one that give money to any political causes. Marsh gave $2,600 to the Nevada GOP Central Committee, $1000 to President Bush, and about $3750 to various republican candidates.
Of the 3 dealerships that will remain open, the owners of Towbin Dodge gave $15,900 to Rep. Shelley Berkley (D), $8,000 to President Bush, $7,000 to NADA, $500 to Rep. Tom Landos (D), $500 to Sen. Ensign, and $1,000 to Jon Porter (R). The owners of the Chapman dealerships gave $2,200 to Sen. McCain, $2,000 to Stan Barnes (R), and $500 to Sen. Kyl (R).
From 8 non-closing dealerships, we have (if I added this up correctly):
D
27,900
R
18,700
Things that make you go "hmmmmm...."
We really need to get more non-closing dealerships, for bigger statistical comparison pool. Too early to detect a trend, but what is there so far does not surprise me.
So we don't duplicate, these are non-closing dealerships' locations we've checked:
St. Louis, MO
Astoria, OR
Las Vegas, NV
Little Rock, AR
If you folks could just get three or four non-closing dealers - just type a random zipcode in Chrysler's dealer locator, note the location, and try to track down the owner(s). If anyone has a better suggestion for the latter, I'm all ears!
If everyone could just take a couple dealers, then the task would not seem so overwhelming for any one of us.
I have Pages 9-10 complete from Courtesy Dodge to Dodge City Motors. The data is up on the blog listed on Post #14.
The latest information shows a massive advantage for the GOP over the Democrats.
http://chryslerdealershipshutdown.blogspot.com/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.