Wow. I'm inclined to think this is a little risky (see bolded text)
Conservatives roll out high-octane strategy to attract middle class Race car branded with party logo meant to appeal to hard-working families
GLORIA GALLOWAY
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 18, 2007 at 4:59 AM EDT
Gentlemen ... and politicians ... start your engines.
The federal Conservatives, who are awash in cash after several years of successful fundraising, are sponsoring a car on the Canadian NASCAR circuit.
Following the lead of Tim Hortons, Home Hardware and Milwaukee Electric Tool, the white No. 29 car in the Canadian Tire auto-racing series now sports a big blue "C" on its hood and side panels.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan and Immigration Minister Diane Finley were joined by nearly a dozen Conservative MPs at a racetrack east of Toronto yesterday to watch their party's car do the laps.
"NASCAR is very popular in my riding," said Ms. Finley, who represents Haldimand-Norfolk in southwestern Ontario. This is a way for the Conservatives to tap into that growing following, she explained.
"It's getting harder and harder to reach people through the regular media. Fewer people are watching the network news ... fewer people are reading the newspapers," the Immigration Minister said.
"So we have to find new advertising outlets to reach them, to get our message through. And 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."
Conservative insiders have been saying for several months that the party strategy is to go after the large number of Canadians who consider themselves middle class.
They have defined that demographic as being the people who buy their coffee at Tim Hortons, not Starbucks, and who shop at Canadian Tire.
Conservatives hope to appeal to people who have gained from measures like the Universal Childcare Benefit and the Child Tax Credit, Ms. Finley said.
"All of these things are helping middle-class Canadian families and those are the people who track NASCAR."
The minister won't say how much money the sponsorship of the race car is costing the Conservative Party: "That would be Pepsi telling Coke what its recipe is."
However, the aim, she said, is to dispel a misconception that the Conservatives are after an "elitist, Bay Street crowd. We're not."
Which is all well and good, but David Docherty, a professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., offers a few caveats.
"What happens if it runs out of gas down the stretch? ... Or it crashes?" Dr. Docherty asked. "This might be one of those things that's too cute by half. It's a great idea and then, 'Oh, what were we thinking?' "
It's probably a better idea than sponsoring the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), he said.
But "presumably, when I sit down on my couch with my chewing tobacco and some Mickey's Big Mouths to watch the NASCAR," Dr. Docherty said, "I am doing that in my leisure time and the last thing I want to be reminded of is politics."
