singley.org > blog archives > "We were conservative before conservative was cool." 02.06.2003

I saw an interesting slogan for an investment company on the bus this evening. It read, "We were conservative before conservative was cool."

Um, what? Is conservatism cool? I mean, I never claimed to be overly cool myself, but I didn't think that was because I'm way on the left side of the political spectrum. Then I started thinking about it and realized who our president was, how popular he is (even if his numbers are slipping), and how the Republicans made significant gains in the midterm elections. So if we define "cool" as siding with the majority of Americans, then I suppose conservatism is currently cool. Can you imagine something like that appearing on a bus in the 1960s?

I can't help but think that they are really missing their target audience, however. Urban public transportation riders in a state that just elected a democratic governor are not generally conservative. The guy sitting next to me had a "Free Tibet" patch sown on his denim jacket and a Ralph Nader bumper sticker on his messenger bag. I'm guessing he is neither conservative nor very interested in conservative investment strategies. Silly advertisters.

the problem is, the free tibet guy and the bike messenger arent their target audience. There target audience are folks with large amounts of capital who like conservative economic policy.