Disease-ridden voters

They are worlds apart: the brash, gun-loving, God-fearing, Southern fans of Nascar racing, and the button-downed, suit-wearing political elite in Washington.

But the loathing of the Nascar crowd for the inhabitants of Capitol Hill has reached new heights after the decision by Washington political aides to get inoculated before attending a race this weekend.

To compound the error, the aides in question are Democrats, a party that has been so keen to regain the votes of white Southern males that it has even given them their own demographic term: “Nascar Dads”. The decision to get immunisations, against hepatitis, tetanus and diphtheria, is as much a political blunder as a cultural clash.

The trip was part of the House Homeland Security Committee’s investigation into public health preparedness at mass gatherings. Nascar races attract crowds of up to 300,000 predominately working-class fans.

The Democrat chairman of the committee instructed the aides to get the immunisations and the Republicans pounced, claiming Democrats were treating Nascar supporters like Third World inhabitants. “To suggest vaccines are needed to attend Nascar races is insulting to millions of hard-working Americans,”said Tim Walberg, a Republican congressman.

How many people, I wonder, have died from diseases picked up at Nascar races? Do the Democrat aides have access to figures showing that to attend such an event unvaccinated is to sign one's own death warrant? Because they must surely have had some evidential basis for choosing to be inoculated. Otherwise, we'd have to conclude that the American political class regard their own working-class with utter loathing and contempt. And that couldn't possibly be the case, could it?