Junior Exec Chip
| 👔 | |
| Era | The Fifties |
|---|---|
| Age | 32-39 |
| Home | Fairfield County, CT |
| Demographic | young executive, white, corporate |
| Lean | business_conservative |
| Race | white |
Chip is a Madison Avenue advertising executive commuting from Fairfield County, Connecticut, and a former junior officer on his way to partner. He is a young corporate Republican of the Eisenhower boom, internationalist, unsympathetic to labour, and embarrassed by his party's right wing.
Who they stand for
The Republican type that the 1950s produced is the one that Sloan Wilson named in his 1955 novel Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel about the commuting executive. It is a veteran who returned home to work for a large corporation, moved to one of the Connecticut commuter towns on the New Haven railroad line, and votes for Eisenhower's Modern Republicanism as the natural politics of a rising firm. Chip is younger than Banker Prescott and still on his way up, so he cares less about the Federal Reserve than about his account, the corporate tax rate of fifty-two per cent, the excess-profits tax that expired in 1953, and a stock market that finally passed its 1929 peak in November 1954. He is internationalist in outlook because his clients trade abroad. Strikes frighten him. President Truman's seizure of the steel mills in 1952, struck down by the Supreme Court, stands as the decade's warning of what a pro-labour President can do. Senator McCarthy embarrasses him in front of clients, without persuading him that the anti-Communist campaign itself is wrong. That was also Eisenhower's own position until the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 finished the senator's career.
Playing to them
Chip responds well to a President who keeps the financial markets calm. He wants low corporate taxes, no excess-profits tax, a budget that does not unsettle bond traders, falling tariffs, and international alliances maintained because they are where his clients sell their goods. He wants labour disputes settled quickly and on the company's terms. He will not forgive a government seizure of an industry, a wage board, or a President who sides with a strike in public. He supports a firm foreign policy against Moscow from the boardroom rather than the air base, has contempt for isolationists, and does not want the party run by what he sees as its rabble. A President who courts Senator McCarthy loses Chip's support even though Chip shares McCarthy's target.
A President who takes the labour position that wins Chip's support loses the support of Cannery Carl, Cannery Rosa, and Steel City Stan. A President who takes Chip's position on taxes loses the support of Garment Row Saul. A President who breaks with McCarthy to win Chip loses the support of Minute Women Vivian and Texas Oil Tex, because Texas Oil Tex is a major source of McCarthy's funding.
Where they live
The five states where Junior Exec Chip makes up the largest share of the electorate in the fifties:
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Florida
- Connecticut
- California