Who Needs NASCAR?

By Baxter

Once, a few years ago, we cats were driving down from Miami to the Florida Keys when we got caught in a traffic jam near Homestead.

Need we say that the gridlock was due to a NASCAR event? And, hoo boy. We'd never seen such a glut of obnoxious Republican bumper stickers. But then, we never attend megachurch or park at Marcus Bachmann's "pray away the gay" clinic.

So we were a little puzzled why Michelle Obama and Jill Biden would show up at Homestead over the weekend, only to get booed by some of those same NASCAR idiots. (We say idiots because, goodness gracious, is there any stupider sport than auto racing? Okay, maybe golf.)

We have only two theories, both political: One, that since teabaggers and conservative Republicans skew heavily to older, white males — and since there is some sympathy for the President (and even more for the First Lady) among working-class white females — having the drunken boys boo Michelle and Jill at a teabag sporting event could build more support among those women.

Two, their appearance could 1) inspire some seriously insincere, highbrow-ish candidate — say, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich — to show up at another NASCAR event and make a complete fool of himself, and 2) force the Republicans to further embrace this repellent demographic, strengthening their hold on the (dying and shrinking) rural South and making the GOP even less palatable to swing-state suburban voters.

Even if neither of our theories is correct, it's foolish for the NASCAR fans to have booed. Since Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden were there to promote Joining Forces, you could say the NASCARians were jeering the troops. Why do teabaggers hate America?