NPR: Is the NASCAR Primary Just Down the Road?

Is the NASCAR Primary Just Down the Road?

Now, sit back in your chair, close your eyes and imagine you're at the Daytona 500. (OK, even if you're not a NASCAR fan, play along with me here.) As the cars come around the final bend, trailing the pace car, you anxiously scan the pack, looking for your favorite driver. Could it be Jeff Gordon in the Ron Paul "Let's Get Out of Iraq" Chevrolet? Perhaps Carl Edwards in the John McCain "It's Not Amnesty" Ford? Or maybe Dale Earnhardt in his new Hillary Clinton "I Wouldn't Have Voted for the War Knowing What I Know Now" Chevy?

You laugh. But it's actually happening north of the border.

The Canadian Press reports that Canada's governing Conservative Party is now sponsoring a car in the Canadian NASCAR circuit. Its big blue "C" logo will appear on the hood of No. 29, a Dodge Charger driven by Pierre Bourque, an Internet media entrepreneur.

"The people who follow NASCAR are our kind of people. They're hard-working families, they're taxpayers who play by the rules. And those are the people that we're targeting," Immigration Minister Diane Finley told The Globe and Mail.

However, opposition parties point out that the decision to back a stock car, which gets about 2 to 5 miles per gallon on leaded fuel, doesn't exactly match the government's recent rhetoric about improving Canada's stance on global warming. One politician commented that it seems that the Conservatives have more money than sense right now.

But what an idea! American politicians are missing the, well, race car on this one. NASCAR is now the second-most-watched TV sport in America. Who will be the first big-name candidate to get his or her logo on somebody's front bumper?

9:52 AM ET | 06-19-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Hint: It won't be one of the above-named Democrats. Karl Rove has already staked out NASCAR as the neo-cons' second home. I only wish those blabbermouth Canadians hadn't suggested this to him.

Sent by Joseph Fischer | 11:20 AM ET | 06-19-2007

Mark Warner and Sen. Bob Graham have both used NASCAR to advertise their campaigns for governor and President respectively.

Sent by julie | 11:45 AM ET | 06-19-2007

I wonder, though, whether NASCAR advertising would fall under current campaign finance regulations (these are all televised events)?
Furthermore, as such an advertising scheme would leave little room for Democrats (in my opinion), would it really be worht the Republicans' money to advertise to what they percieve as their own political "base"? Would political billboards at 190 mph really win over new converts?
Finally, it would be great to see "your" candidate's face in victory lane the Sunday before the election, but that's only 1 chance out of 43 or so that s/he will make it. Chances are far better that candidate "X" will blow an engine, a tire, wreck, or, worse, be wrecked by another candidate.
Or is that what politics is really all about?

Sent by J Franklin Williamson | 12:25 PM ET | 06-19-2007

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