星期一 [ 2010-1-18 14:02:29 | watches2009 ]   New Orleans-area businesses ignore risk of showing Dirty Coast got its start two and a half years ago selling T- shirts that appealed to an eager and largely youthful contingent of city boosters with slogans such as "Be a New Orleanian Wherever You Are" and "Peace in New Orleans East." Yet for one of the Girard Perregaux Fake company's newest designs, inspiration was found far outside New Orleans, in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. "I was watching (returns from) one of the first primaries and I was yelling, 'Go Obama! Go Obama!' And it kind of morphed into 'Geauxbama,'" said Dirty Coast co-owner Patrick Brower, explaining the origins of the T-shirt he said has become a best seller at the Magazine Street store. While interest in the shirt has been overwhelmingly positive, Brower said there have been a handful of unfavorable reactions, such as the angry e-mail received from a customer asking to be removed from Dirty Coast's mailing list. It is an example of the risk business owners take in stepping outside the realm of neutrality and into the fray of electoral politics. "Generally, it can't help you but it can hurt you," Loyola University marketing professor Jerry Goolsby said. "It is unlikely that someone will patronize a business solely because it supports a political candidate, but it is far more likely that someone will not patronize a business that supports a candidate that he or she does not support." Still, Brower and his business partner Blake Haney are part of a small, but prominent group of city merchants thumbing their noses at conventional wisdom this presidential election season, putting their political leanings on full display even if it means turning off a certain clientele. "We are so pro-Obama, we didn't even think of the other side of it," Brower said, referring to customers who might favor presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. Brower concedes his store's pro-Obama stance likely "wouldn't fly" in a more conservative community like Jefferson Parish or Baton Rouge. "If people don't like it, it's kind of one of those things," he said. "If you don't want to buy my shirt, you don't have to." It's a philosophy echoed by a handful of other small-business owners along Magazine Street and beyond who have posted campaign signs in windows and in some cases offer campaign-themed merchandise for sale. Based on these gestures, presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama appears the heavy favorite among this group of renegade merchants. A survey of businesses within the city limits turned up no similar signs of support for McCain. The one McCain-related item found appeared in the window of Magazine Street novelty store Bootsy's Fun Rock'N: a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of the senator and the declaration "Presidon't." University of New Orleans political science professor Edward Chervenak attributes the overt support shown Obama in some business quarters to a variety of factors, including a city population in which two out of three registered voters are Democrats and a Republican brand that is "suffering from low ratings across the country." Moreover, he said, "these are business owners who are probably hurting from the downturn in the economy. ... These folks most likely believe the current administration is responsible for the economic mess and so they are more supportive of the Democratic alternative." Goolbsy offered a third explanation: "McCain is just not the kind of guy that people get all enthusiastic about," he said. Other articles: http://www.xaeg.cn/Blog/View/?217 http://shenyong.skpay.net/Blog/View/?320 浏览(188) | 回复(1)
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