Say Anything Blog

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the closing of Chrysler dealerships, and it looks like that controversy may have landed in my back yard here in North Dakota.

According to CNN, one of the Chrysler dealerships closed in North Dakota was Cedric Theel, Inc. in Bismarck which until just recently was a Dodge dealer.  Now Theel no longer sells Dodge (according to their website they’re apparently just a Toyota dealer now), but according to a Bismarck Tribune article today Chrysler has pushed another dealership in Bismarck to begin selling Dodge.

The Dodge franchise will have a new home in Corwin-Churchill Motors, Inc., the company announced today.

Bruce Whittey, owner of Corwin-Churchill Motors, announced that Chrysler wants the Bismarck Chrysler and Jeep dealership to move forward with adding the Dodge brand.

Corwin-Churchill will need to expand its parts and services department, said Whittey.  They will invest in new equipment to be able to service the larger vehicles, Whittey said, and will add five to six more employees.

So why would Chrysler pull Dodge away from one dealer in Bismarck, North Dakota under the auspices of saving money and getting more efficient only to encourage another dealer in the very same city to take up Dodge?

I can’t fathom a reason except for political.  Mr. Cedric Theel is a long time Republican political supporter.  According to disclosures on the Secretary of State’s website, Theel has donated thousands of dollars to the re-election of Republican Governor John Hoeven and I’m told by other sources that he’s been supportive of other conservative/Republican causes.

I can’t find any specific political donations from Mr. Bruce Whittey, owner of Corwin-Churchill Motors (though there are some contributions from Whittey family members in Mandan to Democrat Joe Satrom’s campaign for Governor in 2004), so I can’t speak to his politics.  But it does seem fishy, no?  Especially in light of the dealerships controversy nationally?

A Republican political contributor loses his Dodge dealership to another dealer in the same relatively small town?  Maybe this has nothing to do with politics, but that move certainly doesn’t match Chrysler and the Obama administration’s story about closing dealerships to make the company more efficient.

These are the sort of questions that arise when the government takes control of the private sector.  Are the decisions being made in the best interest of the businesses and the economy?  Or in the best interests of the party that just happens to control the government at the moment?