This time, via the Federal Election Commission. Back in 2004, NASCAR Nextel Cup driver Kirk Shelmerdine had a “Bush/Cheney 2004” sticker on the rear quarter panel of the car for 4 of the final 10 races of the 2004 season. The placement of the sticker was not authorized by the Bush/Cheney campaign, nor did the campaign pay to have Shelmerdine display the decal. Because Kirk Shelmerdine Racing is a Limited Liability Corporation, a complaint was filed with the FEC:

… complaint the FEC received from one Sydnor Thompson that Kirk Shelmerdine had improperly committed an independent expenditure on behalf of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign during the 2004 race.

This complaint mentioned that there was no disclaimer that Kirk was displaying the decals of his own volition, and sought some huge fines and penalties.

OK, let me tell you about Kirk Shelmerdine. I’ll always remember him as the crew chief for the late, great Dale Earnhardt. Kirk always wanted to go racing on his own, and left Richard Childress Racing several years back. Kirk’s team is drastically underfunded; car sponsors, when they are to be found at all, are not high rollers themselves, nor are they usually repeat sponsors. So Kirk, sponsorless for the 4 races in question, put the Bush/Cheney decals on the car to draw attention to himself, his car, and his race team, in hopes of attracting sponsorship money. The very fact that he even occasionally makes the field of 43 is remarkable. He never runs particularly well, but even 40^th place money is a bunch to someone who can squeeze the nickels he way he can; he’s eking out a living, and doing what he wants.

Back to the complaint in question; the FEC spent months trying to value the space on the car that was occupied by the offending decals. As a market guy, I can tell you: zero. The simple fact that no sponsors stepped up for any of these races should indicate the space’s value. And, does anyone really think that had some sponsor offered him $50K to carry their signage, that Kirk would still have had Bush/Cheney decalomania on the car for free? Kirk’s a businessman, I’m sure he can do the math. With no sponsors, he put the campaign materials on his car as a statement.

So after months of FEC hand-wringing and navel-gazing, they let Kirk off with something called a “letter of admonishment”, which means “we think we could have fined the shit out of you, but we’ll cut you some slack this time. Pull that crap again, and we’ll whack you in the wallet.”

From Mark Tapscott’s post. which was quoted briefly above, these observations:

If you still wonder why I believe this case is so important, think about this: What is the difference between Kirk Shelmerdine’s race car as his equipment for making a living and the pickup truck driven by the plumber or housing contractor?

The contractor with a Kerry-Edwards or Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on his back bumper and driving down I-95 or just about any other public road in America will be seen by far more people than Shelmerdine’s “field filler” race car at four NASCAR events.

It’s the same “independent expenditure,” but it has more impact than the Shelmerdine sticker, so what’s to keep Congress from next directing the FEC to “admonish” every contractor, plumber, electrician, etc. etc. in America to get those bumper stickers off their pickups?

Indeed. It looks like we’re entering yet another “Year of the Chickenshit.”

-k-
Linkage to Kirk Shelmerdine Racing. From the looks of it, his sponsorship woes are maybe a little less severe. Good.

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