How disgraceful!

Whether or not you like President Obama, it was a disgrace that Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Biden were booed at the Nascar race on Sunday.  For crying out loud, they were there to support military veterans, a constituency also actively supported by racing fans!
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No excuse for booing Michelle Obama at NASCAR race
By Jay Busbee

NASCAR fans skew conservative. You know that, I know that, politicians know that. An overwhelmingly white fan base, rooted in Southern conservative values (we still have a pre-race prayer, for heaven's sake) ... it's no surprise that NASCAR generally tilts right.

Which would be just fine, if that tilt didn't slide into toxicity. But on Sunday afternoon at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it did.

Moments before one of the greatest races in sports history, certain NASCAR race attendees — I'm not dignifying these cowards with the term "fans" — showed why this sport will always have trouble getting respect from the mainstream of America: they booed the First Lady of the United States.

Inexcusable. Unforgivable. Don't give me the "free speech" argument. Don't give me the "Obama sucks" argument. Don't try anything you can possibly do to rationalize this away. Why? For a very simple reason, one that supersedes both politics and sport:

You don't boo women.

You don't. Especially not in NASCAR, which reveres Mother's Day so much it won't even schedule races on that day. It's stunning that we've slid this far as a culture that something as simple and profound as respect for wives and mothers is now this cheap.

This is not about politics. This is not about "free speech." This is about being enough of a man (if you're a man) and enough of an American, whoever you are, to recognize that we should hold ourselves to some higher standards in our public life. (And this also isn't about stay-in-the-kitchen sexism. If we can agree to hold open a door for a woman, can't we agree it's acceptable not to boo her?)

If it was President Obama up there? Sure, boo your head off. Same thing if it was former President George W. Bush. The president takes the job, he should deal with the fallout and the negative opinion. But to boo the man's wife? Especially when she's engaged in that most conservative of pursuits, supporting military veterans and their families?

Come on. You just harmed the image of NASCAR worse than anything that Obama ever could have done.

Look, I get the reasoning, twisted though it may be. Michelle Obama is married to the president, and many in NASCAR nation have profound philosophical differences with the president, to put it politely. Whether NASCAR fans who break from Obama have legitimate political arguments with the way the president runs our country, or whether they're just ticked that things ain't as good as they were back when (and nobody ever says that in NASCAR, do they?), they can and should be allowed to express their grievances with him in public. But to do it by attacking his wife?

So, so far beyond stupid. (Let's not even get into the racial aspect of this, which opens up a whole different line of discussion. It's there, but let's stay focused on gender.)

So, for those of you who think that you made some kind of difference by booing the First Lady, you're exactly right ... but not in the way you think. You boo a man, he might think twice about what he's doing. You boo a man's wife, he won't ever think twice about you again. Nice work.
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Michelle Obama booed at NASCAR race. Was that to be expected?
Michelle Obama booed at NASCAR? That can't be too surprising, right? Maybe not, considering only 30 percent of NASCAR fans identify as Republicans.
By Peter Grier, Staff writer / November 21, 2011

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden got booed at a NASCAR race in Florida on Sunday, in case you haven’t heard. Now, questions of civility and first ladies aside, our question is this: What did they expect? Isn’t auto racing, you know, a Republican-leaning activity, especially in the South? Why were they there?

Because in political terms NASCAR is a target-rich environment, that’s why. And overall NASCAR fans are not as GOP-oriented as you might think.

First off, let’s back up and acknowledge that Ms. Obama and Ms. Biden were at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the name of a charity, Joining Forces, which promotes the hiring of veterans. Perhaps they hoped the association with the military would bring them a warm reception. They weren’t there passing out “Reelect Barack” stickers, after all.

But to some Republicans, the first lady is a symbol of an administration overreaching. They bristle at her emphasis on eating right and exercising as just another example of government sticking its nose into activities it has no business getting involved in.

Thus Rush Limbaugh took the unprecedented step of praising the reception given the first and second ladies.

“NASCAR people ... know that in their hearts, the Obamas don’t like them. We’ve taken notice of this,” said the radio entertainer on his show.

Well, we can’t speak to the composition of that particular Florida crowd. But perhaps Mr. Limbaugh would be surprised to learn that NASCAR fans as a whole aren’t Republican, after all.

Yes, 30 percent of NASCAR adherents identify themselves as leaning to the GOP, according to a lengthy survey of the subject released this summer. But 29 percent say they’re Democrats.

This finding is consistent with some previous surveys of which other conservative commentators are aware. In 2008, the conservative writer and activist S.E. Cupp in an article on NASCAR’s own website noted that the sport’s “fans vote 35 percent Republican and 28 percent Democratic – a separation of only 7 percentage points, hardly a convincing argument for NASCAR’s political leanings."

Other attributes of NASCAR audiences are heavily studied because, well, they’re an attractive merchandising opportunity. Surprise, surprise – they’re not redneck beer-swillers who thrill to “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns.

Or at least, not that many of them are. NASCAR’s own data show its fans to be 60 percent male and 40 percent female. Twenty percent are minorities. Their income levels and age are pretty similar to the income levels and age of the US population as a whole.

In fact, NASCAR’s fan base is a fairly good representation of the nation as a whole, in terms of demographic characteristics.

Yes, Sunday’s race was in the South. But if you look at the overall picture, Ms. Obama and Ms. Biden might have expected a better reception. At the least, contrary to Limbaugh’s assertion, they got booed by individuals who didn’t like them – not an entire fandom.
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