The Weirdest Conspiracy Theory of All Time: Republican Chrysler Dealers Targeted by Obama?

We ran binary logistic regressions across the variables. The results are interesting but the most dramatic was saved dealers v. donations by candidate and/or party.

This puzzled us. Why would there be an significant noticeable (we have rightly been called out for using significant here) and highly positive correlation between dealer survival and Clinton donors? Granted, that P-Value (0.125) isn’t enough to reject the null hypothesis at 95% confidence intervals (our null hypothesis being that the effect is due to random chance), but a 12.5% chance of a Type I error in rejecting a null hypothesis (false rejection of a true hypothesis) is at least eyebrow raising. Most statistians would not call this a “find” as 95% confidence intervals are the gold standard for this sort of work. Nevertheless, it seems clear that something is going on here. Specifically, the somewhat low probability that the Clinton data showing higher survivability of Clinton donors could result just from pure chance. But why not better significance with any of the other variables? Why this stand out?

via Zero Hedge: I Am Marla’s Observations On Artificial Selection In Chrysler Dealerships.

I thought this was a joke when I first heard of it, but apparently it’s circulating as a serious theory, and gaining momentum.

It seems that there has been a lot of grumbling surrounding the closure of certain car dealerships in the the Chrysler wind-down. The company didn’t want to shut down some 25% of its dealerships, but the President’s Automotive Task Force insisted. And once the shutdowns commenced, rumors began to circulate that there were more forced closures of dealerships who contributed heavily to Republican candidates last year than dealerships who gave to Obama or Hillary Clinton.