Finally, someone in the blogosphere has performed the quantitative statistical analysis that I wanted to see, regarding whether dealership owners’ contributions to political candidates affected the likelihood of their dealerships closing.
I became aware of this because of a post on directorblue’s blog ([Link: directorblue.blogspot.com...] but I want to link directly to the entire analysis, because I believe that dealerblue’s conclusion is incorrect.
Comments do not necessarily reflect the views of Little Green Footballs.
Obscene, abusive, silly, or annoying remarks may be deleted, but the fact that particular comments remain on the site in no way constitutes an endorsement of their views by Little Green Footballs.
Posts that contain phone numbers, street addresses, email addresses or other personal information will also be deleted, as will posts that consist only of a variation on the word, "First!"
Comments that advocate violence will be cause for immediate banning with no appeal.
REMEMBER: posting comments at LGF is a privilege, not a right. Abuse that privilege, and your account will be blocked.
The person who did this analysis, Marla Singer, assembled exactly the data set that I think needs to be assembled: a list of all of the Chrysler dealerships, both the ones that are remaining open and the ones that are closing, along with information about their owners' political contributions.
She then did an analysis that I think wasn't really the right one: she performed a multiparametric binary logistic regression, with donations to Hillary Clinton, Obama, McCain, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and nobody as independent variables, and likelihood of dealership closure as the dependent variable.
The result that most closely approached statistical significance was a tendency for Clinton donors' dealerships to stay open (p=0.125). However, Obama donors' dealerships were actually slightly (and insignificantly) less likely to stay open (p=0.509). Democratic donors' dealerships were also slightly (and insignificantly) less likely to stay open. And Republican donors' dealerships were more likely to stay open (p=0.676).
The bottom line: Singer reports no statistically significant findings in this preliminary analysis. She notes a tendency toward significance of Clinton donors' dealerships being more likely to stay open, but the findings for Obama, Democrat donors, and Republican donors, are in the opposite direction to that expected.
I still think that some of the anecdotal observations that directorblue has linked to are worth following up on, and I hope that Marla Singer will keep analyzing her data set, and post it, so that the rest of us can have a look at it. But so far, in my opinion, there's no reason to suspect a systematic bias at all.
The family was from Arkansas. The Dad (Dink) was a furniture salesman in San Bernardino, but back in the way-back-when he used to play 'bones' or 'spoons' in a minstrel show. To relive the golden days of yesteryear he would, from time to time, force his children to accompany him (Ronnie on guitar, Kenny on trombone) in a living room replay of a minstrel routine called "Lazy Bones."
The kids often found this to be an inconvenience, as they were fascinated by, and constantly perfecting new techniques for, The Manly Art Of Fart-Burning. Kenny explained to me that it was scientific - that it demonstrated (this is a real quote) "Compression, ignition, combustion and exhaust." -- Kenny & Ronnie Williams (later immortalized in "Let's Make The Water Turn Black").
Frank says: