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.
Excellent study. Once boiled to a simple set of statistics, we might have a case of corruption at hand. However, who in the world will prosecute these people??
WOW; if this turns out to be true for all or the great majority, this has to be considered a scandal of the highest order.
I bought two cars from Maroone but it was a long time ago.
Interesting. It looks like you’re doing this alone. Too bad America has no ‘journalists’ left.
Wow. I didn’t realize they were closing Roger Penske. How the hell do they justify that?
Somebody should do a full analysis. So far this is only anecdotal, but I’ll bet the results continue to hold up.
I hope someone or organization continue to look into this so that holy hell can be raised about how politics played a part in these closings.
lawsuit. It is at times like these that big-time lawyers can prove their usefulness to society.
Surprise!!!!!!!! (NOT!)
Thanks for looking this up. I wondered, too, about whether Rush’s speculation was true. I’m guessing more car dealerships are owned by Republicans than Democrats so there may be more math that needs to be done.
So what about the Long Island dealer that got this idea running? Who did he donate to?
Interesting.
I posted this on an earlier thread. I knew it would probably be proven somehow.
Letter from a Dodge dealer
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 2:57:17 PM · 142 of 325
wombtotomb to IYAS9YAS
Check 2 things:
Their voting record-too conservative they were axed
Their Church attendance
I bet either one or the other has something to do with it. We can’t have those faith filled (ie bitter clingers) running successful businesses. It would only bolster their argument.
Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies
Here’s a link to a blog that will detail the campaign contributions as they are investigated. I will continue to update this blog until every dealership owner has been researched.
http://chryslerdealershipshutdown.blogspot.com/
In order to make an inference, one would need to know the % of dealers left in place who made donations to either Republicans or Democrats. Perhaps all the rest of the dealerships were pro-Republican? Just knowing that the majority to be terminated lean Republican is not enough to prove political bias.
Of course, the whole mess is skulduggery no matter how the terminated dealerships were chosen.
I have to agree! No surprise!
The Unions voted for this guy, now he is absconding with the car industry and making some of them close shops. I bet they have alot of regrets.
On Beck, I saw a NJ dealer who said his franchise was being given to a dealer two miles down the road. Also, on FR there was a letter from a dodge dealer that said his dealership was being given to someone else. In order to complete this picture, we need to find out the campaign contributions of the people who are getting dealerships.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2254042/posts
Just make the charge ~ "Obama closes Chrylser dealerships who didn't come across with lots of campaign bucks". See what happens.
I will look into the contributions of the other dealers as soon as I get through the 789 dealers that will be cut. It’s a pain in the butt to go through 41 pages of terminated dealers.
It’s a safe bet that most of the people getting laid off are Democrats. I wonder if the MSM is covering that story.
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