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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's latest attempt to win over racing fans may have backfired after he referred to their rain ponchos as "garbage bags."

While attending the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Romney told The Associated Press that he didn't follow the sport closely as some fans "but I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners."

He was also quoted mocking the inexpensive rain ponchos that fans often buy when bad weather pops up as it did on Sunday.

“I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks,” he reportedly said.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday asked Romney if it was even worth making those kind of jokes because Democrats would attack him as a "snob."

"You know, it's hard to imagine all the things they are going to try and turn into attacks," the former Massachusetts governor replied. "That's the first time I've heard the one that you've mentioned."

"Look, I've worn a garbage bag for rain gear myself," he added. "We're out there in the rain. The rain was getting us soaked. I didn't have a raincoat myself. I would have liked one of those."

As most sports fans know, the emergency rain ponchos sold at outdoor events are, in fact, not garbage bags. They are inexpensive hooded, plastic coverings that usually sell for less than $10.

(H/T: The Washington Post)

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Stephen Colbert weighed in on the prospects of Michigan voters connecting with GOP presidential candidates ahead of their primary race and the efforts by the front runners to do so, whether it be Mitt Romney speaking before an empty stadium, talking about "the trees that are the right height" or Mittens talking about his "great friends" that are NASCAR team owners, or Rick Santorum calling President Obama "a snob" for wanting Americans to go to college and "indoctrinating" our children.

I've said it before about Jon Stewart and I'll say it again here. As long as we've got this current debacle which is the GOP presidential primary race, both Stewart and Colbert aren't going to be running out of material any time soon.

It's really pathetic when on a daily basis you've got to wonder if the headlines coming out of their campaign appearances are real, or something The Onion published as a parody.

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While discussing Rush Limbaugh's defense of the NASCAR crowd that booed First Lady Michele Obama and the Vice President Joe Biden's wife Jill and Rush Limbaugh's subsequent defense of those fans and calling FLOTUS Michele Obama “uppity”, which host Chris Matthews rightfully called not “just a dog whistle, but a bugle call”, Matthews asked whether President Obama is going to have a hard time garnering the white vote this election as he did during his first campaign for president.

Andrew Sullivan, for all of his faults and with being in the same class as the David Brooks and Tom Friedman's of the world out there and with being wrong in his support of the Republican Party for years and making excuses for their policies, even though they obviously had utter and complete disdain for gay men such as himself, gets this one right.

As Sullivan rightfully asked here, just how many more minority groups does the GOP have to alienate and piss off before they have a real problem where they cannot just be the party of white angry men any more.

SULLIVAN: But I think it's a huge problem for the Republicans too.

MATTHEWS: How so?

SULLIVAN: Look, you've been watching these debates. Everybody, a lot more have been watching them. If you're a Latino, if you're black, if you're a woman and watched the way they sort of coo-cooed sexual harassment allegations. If you're gay and they booed a gay soldier. I mean how many minorities are they going to tell not to vote Republican until they realize this is going to be a problem for them?

And the more the Limbaugh brand adheres to the Republican Party, the more doomed they are.

As all of them noted, Romney has moved so far to the right on immigration, he's going to have to eventually move on that, but we're not likely to see him flip-flop again until the general election. How much longer the Republicans can continue to follow the Limbaugh model and use racial divisions to win elections successfully remains a question we haven't answered yet, but I sincerely hope those divisions continue to go by the wayside as Rush Limbaugh and Fox's audiences continue to age.

It's long past time that it's not socially acceptable for some racist like Limbaugh to be openly calling the First Lady "uppity" and all I can say is I have to wonder how someone like Limbaugh can continue to look himself in the mirror and spout hatred such as he did here, but I guess those millions he's got coming in somehow make that reflection of such ugliness a whole lot easier to ignore.

I hope Sullivan is right that there's finally a backlash against such hatred and ugliness and that those who are engaging in actual class warfare are punished at the ballot box.