NASCAR: Former Dale Earnhardt Crew Chief Rebuked for Bush Sticker

Kirk Shelmerdine earned his reputation powering Dale Earnhardt to four Winston Cup titles from 1984-1992.  And now the former Dale Earnhardt Chief has been rebuked, not by NASCAR, but by a ruling from Washington, DC.

The ruling goes way back to the 2004 presidential campaign.  In the George W. Bush versus John F. Kerry race the driver placed a Bush/Cheney 04 bumper sticker on his race car to attract attention (he has struggled mightily as a driver) reports the Examiner.

NASCAR: Former Dale Earnhardt Crew Chief Rebuked for Bush Sticker

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Democrats, as they are prone to do - complained. Democratic activist Sydnor Thompson complained to the FEC, and the agency found that Shelmerdine “may have made an unreported independent expenditure or a prohibited corporate expenditure.”

Red State reports:

It determined that Shelmerdine's efforts to draw attention to his under-financed team through the use of a Bush decal was not exempt under the "commercial exemption," even though Michael Moore's making a Bush-bashing movie and showing it throughout the country was entirely exempt because Moore was just trying to make a buck.

The Commission's General Counsel, and at least two commissioners, determined that the value to the Bush campaign was not what Shelmerdine actually spent, or what the Bush campaign would have spent, or what anyone else would have spent to run that ad; but rather, was the value that some other person would have spent on some other occasion to run some other ad for some other product on Shelmerdine's car.

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Former commissioner Bradley Smith dissented in one of the case’s early votes and blogged about the result this week. He has written that in reference to the FEC’s $250 expenditure limit, “evidence is strong that the market value of Shelmerdine’s rear quarter panel was approximately $0, give or take $249.”

He was spared a fine.