The Florida GOP primary may be a distant and not-too-grand memory for Rick Santorum, but an important and much more widely followed Florida event has attracted ol’ Ricky’s attention today. If you happen across Santorum’s name emblazoned across a perpetually left-turning vehicle on the television today, it’s not your hangover. That’s right, the sometimes-leader in the GOP presidential primary death-match has purchased a sponsorship of a car in today’s Daytona 500.
Lucky race fans, including about 180,000 in the stands and another 15 million on television,will be graced with a car bearing Santorum’s name.
It’s an interesting and gutsy move, to be sure. To sponsor Tony Raines #26 in today’s race, the Santorum campaign (or Super PAC) is likely out a minimum of $500K. Given that a single 30 second spot is estimated to run at least that much as well, though, the car sponsorship could prove to be worth much more than what the Santorum folks paid. Considering the demographics of the average NASCAR viewer, it seems perfect. This (undated) study identifies the average fan as male, married and very much middle class. They are exactly the kind of voters the Devil in the Blue Vest has always courted.
Then again, air time in the Daytona 500 tends to go to the leaders, the big names, and those involved in the mammoth crashes for which Daytona is famed. Given that Raines hasn’t run Daytona since 2007, and finished 33rd then, it seems unlikely that we’ll see much of Raines on the leaderboard. Much like the primary race, Santorum’s best chance to get some attention might be the crashing and burning of others.
The most appropriate thing that could happen with a Santorum-sponsored car would be for Raines to take a temporary lead after a couple of the leading cars get tangled up with each other, take a random hard right-turn, and wreck the entire field.
