NASCAR Dads the New Soccer Moms?

Fan Commentary by Grandstand Bob

You know that NASCAR has become mainstream when its fans are targeted as a valuable political contingency. In case you missed it, the soccer moms that Bill Clinton’s strategists targeted to land him in the White House have been replaced by a new kind of character, dubbed the NASCAR Dad. Imagine what Junior Johnson is thinking about now.

Despite the fact that we’re losing our untouchable rebel reputations, you can’t help but snicker about how far the sport and its fans have come. Along with Hispanics and married white females, NASCAR dads are expected to be a major deciding factor in the next political race between George W. Bush, Jr. and whoever the Democrats give us.

So who are the NASCAR dads? According to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, NASCAR dads are white, working-class men inclined to support Republicans but capable of backing a Democrat if they agree on the issues. They are the same group who doomed Al Gore to defeat in the 2000 presidential election.

In that election, rural white males disagreed with many of Gore’s positions, including gun control. The Democrats presumably believed that they could count on the Democratic Party’s strong ties to unions, and that winning over urban females on gun control while alienating hunters and firearms enthusiasts wouldn’t hurt too badly. Big mistake. The NASCAR dad likes his guns, and more importantly, his freedom to defend himself.

Most of the estimated 75 million NASCAR fans live in those states that showed up red behind Dan Rather’s head in the 2000 election, and the Democrats have realized that this fan base is big and loyal, and they’re betting that we will forget where the candidates used to stand before we mattered.

Readers of this column know that my political affiliation leans to the polar opposite of the Democratic Party, reaching almost all the way to the Libertarian Party, so I’m not going to claim unbiased journalism here. That said, I want to remind fellow NASCAR dads where the Democratic Party stands.

A month or so ago, when the NAACP started squawking because many of the Democratic presidential candidates skipped the organization’s annual meeting, they showed up en masse to plant their noses up the butts of some people who recently said that NASCAR was a “redneck cracker sport.” Imagine what these guys will do, if one of them is elected president and the NAACP calls for federally mandated diversity programs in motorsports. It’s one thing to show up for a race or two, and it’s another to stand side-by-side with fans on important issues.

Gun control, affirmative action, Social Security and national defense are other issues where I see a huge disparity between the Democratic Party and NASCAR Dads. Obviously, there are exceptions; not all Democrats are extreme left-wing, and not all NASCAR fans are staunch conservatives. Still, if one considers the recent history of the Democratic Party and the demographics of NASCAR fans, it’s hard to see a true match.

Based on my experiences as a race fan and writer of this column, I believe that the NASCAR Dad is fiercely patriotic and supportive of American troops. He believes in individual rights and is responsible to himself; he doesn’t want a handout or to be given preferential treatment because of a box he checks on his voter registration card. He believes in a limited role for government and lower taxes, so that he can better be able to take care of himself and his family.