By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 19, 2007
HOMESTEAD, Fla., Nov. 18 -- Now, Rudolph W. Giuliani says, he "really" is a NASCAR fan.
The Republican presidential candidate is better known as a New Yorker, of course, one who as the city's mayor drew admiration associating with quintessentially New York passions -- for attending the Metropolitan Opera and pulling unambiguously for the Yankees.
But now he is playing to a national audience, and if it means the New Yorker has to do NASCAR, the honored Southern pastime with national appeal, well, he proved game.
On Sunday, the Giuliani campaign came to the Homestead-Miami Speedway, past a handful of Confederate flags flying in the parking lot and beyond the Jack Daniel's tent, to attend NASCAR's Ford 400.
"This is our third race this year," he boasted to the assembled dignitaries, who included former heavyweight boxing champion Lennox Lewis, Miss Florida and crew chiefs, shortly before the race.
Then he fawned over the races.
"This is a quintessentially American sport," he told the audience. "It represents the best of America."
Even if his appearance at the race offered obvious political advantages -- Florida is a key early-voting state in the primary schedule -- no one in the room questioned his sincerity.
In some ways, Giuliani and NASCAR fans seem a natural match.
Of 10 people randomly interviewed in and around Section 204, there were two nearly unanimous political opinions: Giuliani seems like a strong leader, particularly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that anybody was better than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D), another New York figure, although not by any means a native.
"God bless him!" said Trevor Jeanes, 23, a construction worker with a DeWalt power tools hat and a can of Budweiser in his hand. "He did a damn good job in 9/11. He's the only one I respect in Bush's party."
"Put me down as anybody but Hillary," said Jeff Carroll, 51, a band director at a private school in Fort Lauderdale. "Giuliani could be the president."
"Every woman in the country is going to vote for Hillary," scoffed Brian Landis, 43, a tree surgeon from Deerfield Beach, shaking his head in disgust. "They're just going to vote for her. I like Giuliani. It's who I know. It's who I trust."
It was not just the NASCAR fans in Section 204 and elsewhere at the track who seem to favor the New Yorker, either.
Employees of the stock racing organization have contributed more than $50,000 to Giuliani's campaign. Stars Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears each have given him $2,300, the maximum allowed by law.
While NASCAR officials have said their fans' demographics are broader than often assumed, "NASCAR" is also shorthand among some political strategists for conservative-leaning white men, typically from the South.
For Giuliani, his appearances at the racetrack have offered obvious tactical advantages. The other races he attended were in Loudon, N.H., and Daytona Beach, Fla., in July, where he revealed to reporters that he had just finished reading "The Female Fan Guide to Motorsports."
New Hampshire and Florida are among the first states to hold primaries. And Florida, where Giuliani has been running well ahead of the Republican field in the polls, is considered crucial to his success.
He has spent a lot of time in the state and noted that he has made other visits supporting other Republican candidates.
"This is almost like being home," he said of his campaigning in Florida.
As the racers prepared to roar around the track in a celebration of the power of fossil fuels, one of the gaggle of reporters asked about how he feels about the price of oil running to nearly $100 a barrel.
He said he favors pursuing a wide range of alternative fuel sources. Biofuels. Hydroelectric. Nuclear power. Wind. Solar. More refineries. And, almost as an afterthought, "more conservation."
Genuine or not, Giuliani's embrace of NASCAR this year echoes another of his attempts to broaden his sports profile from that of a New Yorker to that of a national candidate.
Last month, he offered to reporters that he was pulling for the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. It was an allegiance many Yankees fans found astonishing, because the Red Sox have long been the Yankees' archrivals.
Giuliani explained he was rooting for the American League team, as if it was the most natural allegiance in the world.
Even today, as he was evincing a NASCAR attraction, he professed a dual baseball allegiance -- apparently first to the American League and then to the Yankees.
A reporter asked the presidential candidate about reports that star third baseman Alex Rodriguez would be returning to the Yankees. What that has to do with his campaign was unclear, but Giuliani answered the question as fully as any other that was lobbed. It was, perhaps, an offhand acknowledgment that the pull of sports in America might even affect votes.
"I'm glad to see as an American League fan, as a Yankees fan, we're keeping him in the American League, we're keeping him on the Yankees," he said.
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