Cheat Seeking Missiles

When I first read of Dealergate in a “Red Alert” post by Doug Ross - the supposed effort by the Obama admin to close Chrysler dealerships whose owners are big GOP donors - I decided not to write about it because a key question was unanswered: How many Chrysler dealers are big Obama supporters?

Seemingly, car dealership owners, as entrepreneurs in a business that’s under odious regulation and ongoing threats to its survival by Dem pontificators, would be overwhelmingly Republican, so dealerships forced to close by a Dem admin would be overwhelmingly Republican. I’m not sure that question has yet to be answered, but the story is getting some very sticky traction (at least on the right side of the blogosphere), so it’s officially an Obama Drama.

In Ross’ newest post, he’s been putting dealership locations and political contributions and finding a pattern of GOP-contributing dealerships being closed to the benefit of nearby Obama-supporting dealerships. Here’s one example of many, many presented:

In [Joey] Smith’s research, one company kept popping up on the list of dealerships remaining open. The company is RLJ-McLarty-Landers, which owns six Chrysler dealerships. All six dealerships are on “the safe list.”

RLJ’s owners “are Steve Landers (long-time car dealer, 4th-generation dealer), Thomas “Mack” McLarty (former Chief of Staff for President Clinton), and Robert Johnson (founder of Black Entertainment Television and co-owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats)… McLarty campaigned for Obama in 2008, and Johnson has given countless amounts of money to Democrats over the years.”

Smith examined RLJ’s markets, which I’ve illustrated below.

Two competitors in the Bentonville area knocked out, and an entire market opened to a dealership whose owners are - and this is an appropriate for goings-on in Arkansas - Friends of Barack. There are four other examples given, the most egregious in Lee’s Summit, MO, where we see this:

There are 5 Chrysler dealerships near Lee’s Summit:

1. Lee’s Summit Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep (Lee’s Summit, MO)
2. Crawford’s Raytown (Jeep) (Raytown, MO)
3. Mitch Crawford’s Holiday Motors (Chrysler) (Raytown, MO)
4. Raytown Dodge Company (Dodge) (Raytown, MO)
5. Milner-O’Quinn Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep (all 4 brands) (Harrisonville, MO)

#1 is located in Lee’s Summit and is owned by RLJ-McCarty-Landers.

#2, #3, and #4 are located 9 miles northwest in Raytown, MO and is owned by Michael Crawford.

#5 is located 19 miles south in Harrisonville, MO and is owned by Charles O’Quinn.

The Lee’s Summit dealership will remain open while the other 4 in Raytown and Harrisonville will close. The Lee’s Summit dealership will have no other Chrysler dealerships located within at least a 20 mile radius. All of the local competition will be wiped out due to the Chrysler closings.

But Chrylser says the dealerships were evaluated based on “sales volume, customer service scores, local market share and average household income in the immediate area.” Looking at the maps, the use of the word “immediate” becomes highly suspect. Besides,

Dealer Jim Anderer told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto he can’t comprehend how his dealership can be among those killed: he stated that his sales volume ranking is in the top 2 percent of all dealers.

Furthermore, Anderer says explanations aren’t forthcoming. “They won’t tell us. They seem to be running for cover right now because they won’t give us a solid explanation. They come up with all these reasons, but none of them seem to make sense… This is insanity. The government is stealing my business. And they’re telling me there’s nothing I can do about it… There was no process that you could put your finger on and say, ‘Hey, we cut 25 percent of the lowest performing dealers.’ They didn’t do that. Nobody will give us a real clear explanation of the formula that they came up with.”

And Reuters tells us this:

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.” (emphasis added)

Here’s Joey Smith’s blog, which is dedicated to this story, and here’s a post at Gateway Pundit. The story is also Michelle Malkin’s lead today, and a Google blog search of “Chrysler dealerships GOP contributions” turned up 6,157 hits at 7:25 a.m. PST, so the story is getting some visibility - although the same search at the NYT, WaPo and AP turned up nothing (natch!).

Obama’s Teflon is still intact and very slick. Will this story break through the way Hillary’s purge of the White House travel office did? If so, it’s a much bigger story and will do some very real damage. But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d bet the story will die due to a complete lack of attention from the mostly marginalized media, and successful Dem efforts to nip any meaningful Congressional investigation in the bud.

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