This is not a new story. Ever since Chrysler announced it was terminating its franchise agreement with 789 dealerships in May, accusations that political bias entered into the decisions have been all over the Web, mostly on conservative-leaning blogs and forums. The basic "argument" is this: The vast majority of terminated Chrysler dealers gave money to Republican candidates, while many of the dealers who were spared supported the Obama campaign.
This claim has been refuted many times over in publications as wide-ranging as the left-leaning Huffington Post to the far-right Heritage Foundation's journal. Many experts have argued that car dealership owners as a whole are more likely to give to Republican causes, so it only stands to reason that many of the terminated dealers were GOP donors. Analysis by the Heritage Foundation suggests there was no correlation between dealerships' status and the percentage they donated to the Republican vs. Democratic campaigns (nor the amount they donated). In effect, it was just business.
But the rumors won't go away. Read Chrysler's official statement after the jump.
"The process Chrysler LLC used to evaluate dealers was a thorough, rigorous process that used a data-driven metric which included the following factors: minimum sales responsibility; a scorecard that measured sales, share, shipments, customer satisfaction index, service satisfaction index and warranty repair; facility (capacity, Millennium II standards); location (optimum retail area); management; was the dealer dualed with a competing manufacturer, did the dealer sell all three Chrysler Group brands under one roof and the market's total sales potential. The process was thoroughly vetted, applied to all dealers consistently and the results were extensively reviewed by a team of people within the company.
"Neither the White House nor the U.S. Treasury were involved in the selection or rejection of dealers. As the U.S. Treasury provided interim Debtor In Possession (DIP) financing, they were notified of the timeline of this announcement and provided with an overview of the matrix and overall number of rejected dealers that resulted from the use of the matrix. Neither the White House nor the U.S. Treasury Department in any way adjusted the criteria used to select or reject dealers."
firstwagon says:
12:03 PM, 09/18/09
Silly theories aside, why are any car dealerships wasting money by giving it to political parties?
Seems to me the money would be better spent paying staff more or giving customers better deals.
thejohnp says:
12:33 PM, 09/18/09
@firstwagon well in GA it helps keep lemon laws on used cars at bay.
zoomzoomn says:
05:29 AM, 09/19/09
Wow. Really? I love a good conspiracy theory, but seriously? It's sad that so many dealers were let go, but just as with GM and Ford there were too damn many to begin with. Something had to give. That said, it would be funny if something actually turned up to support this claim!
estreka says:
10:12 AM, 09/19/09
Thanks for the report, Erin. I hadn't heard about this.
It's only logical that Republican (read: rural) dealerships would be the ones that get shut down. They serve a smaller audience which means fewer sales.
brn says:
08:12 PM, 09/20/09
estreka, I'm not sure rural = republican. Most farmers are democrats.