In a little-noticed ruling released shortly before Christmas, the Federal Election Commission ruled against a NASCAR driver who put a Bush-Cheney sticker on his racing car during the 2004 campaign:

The FEC’s findings were interesting indeed. 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.

Poor Shelmerdine promised that he had nothing to do with politics and never would again – why, to read his affidavit submitted to the FEC, there’s no more apolitical wastrel anywhere than Kirk Shelmerdine (We wouldn’t want our government actually encouraging people to be involved in politics, would we?) – but the General Counsel still wanted to fine him. Cooler heads prevailed at the FEC, but barely – it appears only on a 3-2 vote that the Commission decided not to fine poor Shelmerdine, but merely to have the federal government “admonish” him for this act of raw, unregulated political participation.

Admonish him for exercising his First Amendment rights. That is what campaign finance law has become, thanks in part to such illustrious persons as Senator John McCain.

Mark Tapscott sums it up best and points out the real danger of a decision like this:

What is the difference between Kirk Shelmerdine’s race car as his equipment for making a living and the pickup truck driven by the plumber or housing contractor?

The contractor with a Kerry-Edwards or Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on his back bumper and driving down I-95 or just about any other public road in America will be seen by far more people than Shelmerdine’s “field filler” race car at four NASCAR events.

It’s the same “independent expenditure,” but it has more impact than the Shelmerdine sticker, so what’s to keep Congress from next directing the FEC to “admonish” every contractor, plumber, electrician, etc. etc. in America to get those bumper stickers off their pickups?

The Shelmerdine case is not merely “simply silly,” as argued today by The Washington Post editorial page. It is indicative of the ongoing destruction of history’s greatest bulwark for the right of every individual to think, say, believe and associate as he or she chooses, without having to get prior permission from bureaucrats or politicians.

There some points in history where one simply has to say: Stop, no more. This is certainly one of them. If the FEC can “admonish” someone for putting a stick on their car, then how far away are we from the day when it can regulate the size of the campaign sign you can put in your own front yard ?