There are way too many "if's" to talk about what would/could have happened. The simply fact is that he had a contract and the contract became null/void when they declared bankruptcy. They could have chosen to keep more dealers or chosen to keep less under other circumstances. There is no evidence that links the president's mettling to why they chose to keep some but not others. The only fair assumption in my opinion given the available facts is that this dealer would have suffered the same fate regardless of the the administration's involvement. Take the whole dealer part you started with and the original article out of the equation and I agree that obama shouldn't have had his hands in the deal, but it in no way effected that this dealership was going to lose either way. and that's the free market I am talking about.