I Call Thee, Chryslergate!

In the time-honored (and horrifically uncreative) fashion of appending -gate to Washington D.C. scandals, I give it this name.

Here are some current updates on the state of affairs with the data analysis of the Chrysler dealer closings:

On the "No, really, it's just coincidence" side, we have....
The McComb Daily, which in essence said their analysis of 10 McComb County dealers (of which 3 were closed) proved that there was no bias nationwide. Such extrapolation is ridiculous. Their "statistical analysis," to put it politely, is slipshod and essentially anecdotal.

They did have this little quote, though:

According to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, the National Auto Dealers Association membership gives 69 percent of its contributions to Republicans. Some calculations indicate that the tilt toward the GOP is even more pronounced among all auto dealers.

See my previous post on this topic.

Gateway Pundit reports that a letter in support of the closings, signed by some Chrysler dealers, has a majority of Democratic contributors among them (note that quote above). You can read the whole letter here.

The New York Times has a roster and map of closed dealerships here.

On the "We think something smells stinky" side, we have....
Directorblue points out several anecdotal examples of Democrat-supporting dealerships remaining unscathed, with their competitors eliminated, but also has this quote from WND [World Net Daily] that:

The listed franchise owners [The 789 Chrysler dealers to be closed] contributed at least $450,000 to Republican presidential candidates and the GOP, while only $7,970 was donated to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign and $2,200 was given to Sen. John Edwards' campaign.

Any mathematician worth diddly can tell you that's statistically significant.

They also have a clever analysis (but still not statistically airtight) of ratios of dealers contributing to whom here.

Red State has a nice summary here, including a link to this Mark Levin quote:

Notice, Mark didn’t compare Obama to any notorious dictators of the past. Let’s hope and pray that there is never a justification to do so. But, the potential is right there staring us in the face. Some choose not to see it. They need to open their eyes real fast!

Ain't that the truth! See my review of Levin's latest book here.

Gateway Pundit has maps and a bunch of interesting links here. See this link also.

That should keep us all busy reading for awhile. More to come.

Chrysler Shakedown? Updates and Statistical Analysis

My last blog posting considered the possibility that the Obama administration may have targeted a disproportionate number of Republican-donating Chrysler dealerships for closure. Not having the time to do the original research myself, here are some links to several items of interest related to this story:

Directorblue

Washington Examiner

Gateway Pundit

Red State

Libertarian Republican

theblogprof

These alone (and there are more) have a wealth of data—and they're linking more all the time, it seems—that seems to demonstrate some statistically interesting conclusions.

Since most Americans (alas!) are woefully weak when it comes to statistics, I am going to try to focus on the key issues that must be statistically demonstrated to (a) exonerate the Obama administration, or (b) blow open the greatest Washington scandal since Watergate.

Here are some of the assertions that are beginning to be made:

1. A disproportionate share of the dealers on the closure list gave political contributions to Obama opponents and Republicans.

2. A disproportionate share of the dealers on the closure list are in "red state," GOP-leaning districts across the country.

3. The administration claims that the closed dealers were less profitable and/or losing money may in fact not be true.

Here is how they should be statistically analyzed:

1. Two key sets of data must be obtained: The percentages of dealers giving to each of the various political groups (Republican, Obama for president, Hillary Clinton, etc.; and those who did not give to any political groups) in 2008, and possibly previous years; and the percentages of each of those groups of dealers which were put on the closure list.

For example, it has been speculated that car dealers in general are Republican leaning. Let us say, then, that 60% of dealers give to the GOP [Note: Data used as examples is fictitious and only for the purpose of illustration]. If 75% of the closed dealers are GOP donors, it would then be relatively easy, once the data is in hand, to conclude if this is a statistically significant difference, and if so, to what level of confidence (90% confidence? 95%? 99%? 99.999%? I'm not joking about that last one, either). Confidence intervals, by the way, are quite interesting as a statistical topic.

The same can be done with the Obama donors, or with any other political group. The data could potentially indicate that there are no statistically signficant differences, in which case this whole story will, of necessity, quickly fade away. But just imagine a press release like this:
"We [insert statistician(s) name(s) here] conclude, with a 99.9% level of confidence, that there is a statistically significant difference between the political giving of dealers overall and those who were closed." The impeachment proceedings should begin within days.

2. This will be the easiest of the three, and the process mirrors #1 above. The two key sets of data this time are how many dealers are in "red" areas, and how many of the closed dealers are in "red" areas. [Note: Defining "red" geographically could be done at the state level, or at the congressional district or county levels. Here in Michigan, a blue state overall, the west side of the state tends to be red, while the east side is deep blue. No doubt the analysis will be done at state, district and county/local levels.]

Tests for statistically significant differences are then performed, as with #1.

3. This one will be the most challenging of the three to assert from a statistical viewpoint, as there will likely be various viewpoints on what constitutes "profitable," "growing," etc., combined with the fact that many dealerships are quite private about their financials. [Question: If the car companies are government owned, can a FOIA request unlock this data?] Furthermore, whatever statistics Chrysler may have used to comprise the list of dealer closures would need to be incorporated into the analysis.

Assuming the data becomes available in sufficient detail, the essence of the analysis will be a comparison—but there is more than one way to do it.

• Comparison of all dealers to closed dealers. I would be surprised—nay, shocked—if there was not a statistically significant difference here, but the magnitude of the difference will be informative.
  
• Comparison of closed dealers to dealers in the lowest 25% of profitability overall. It would also be interesting—and fairly easy once the data is known—to determine the degree of overlap in these groups. Which brings us to...
  
• Comparison of closed dealers to the lowest 25% profitability dealers who are allowed to remain open. This one could be fascinating, because if the closed dealers are not worse off from a profitability perspective than the lowest quarter of those who remained open, the stink will rise.

Whether or not the Obama administration more closely resembles the blindfolded Lady of Justice or the cast of the Godfather remains to be seen.

Godspeed, accuracy, and best wishes to all those data crunchers out there.

Did Campaign Contributions Determine Which Chrysler Dealers Were Closed?

This is a question now being scrutinized (see one site here) by some who have begun to notice that among those dealers closed, a seemingly disproportionate number of them were significant donors to the Republican party and Republican candidates.

If it could be shown that the Obama administration forced Chrysler dealerships to close and that the manner of selecting those dealerships had political motives, this would be a scandal far greater than any seen in the last 35 years at the presidential level. Closing these dealerships summarily already has legal implications (like, say, breach of contract) which the owners have the right to fight in court—regardless of anything else.

If it is true, then what we will see is the worst of Chicago-style thug-politics-from-the-gutter being practiced at the very highest level. The mob bosses may actually become envious.

I hope to see this thoroughly researched. Soon.

Thanks to theblogprof for alerting me to this story.

Two Articles For Your Reading Pleasure

This morning I was privileged to read two articles before I began my workday.

The first was this month's Imprimus article by Mark Steyn, titled "Live Free or Die." It is an important reminder that the Obama administration, to an even greater extent than liberal-minded government before his time, wants to take away our freedoms and liberties and make us ever-more-dependent on the state. You can click here and choose the article (2009/04) from the list.

The second was a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled "Chrysler and the Rule of Law." It reminds us of the importance of contracts and contract law, both as foundational to our government in particular, and to the Chrysler bankruptcy in particular. The fact that the Obama administration is trying to strong-arm companies and investors into something other than what their contracts and the laws require is deeply troubling, both in the short term and in the long term.

Happy Reading!