Of Candidates, Conviction and Planning

Boarding the hotel shuttle on my way to the Insured Retirement Institute’s annual convention in beautiful Colorado Springs last weekend, I ran into a very pleasant man with some dearly held convictions.

In Texas, where he lived, this man said, the spirit of entrepreneurship is allowed to roam and seek its own reward. That meant he was going to vote Republican in the upcoming presidential election.

(Picture the shuttle scene: A passenger from the conservative state of Texas, a woman from liberal state of Massachusetts and myself, living in the swing state of Pennsylvania.)

When it comes to presidential politics, Texas is as Republican and conservative as it gets, but I let him know that he should be careful. There are a lot of Hispanics in Texas and many of them don’t like what Trump has to say.

I, an independent in a swing state, hoped to inject a little bit doubt into his beliefs, even if I didn’t quite get around to mentioning subsidies for Texas oil industry interests.

No matter, he said. Once anyone – Hispanics or whomever – builds a life and thriving businesses for themselves, they turn Republican as (I assume), the more wealth you build the less of it you want to hand over to the government.

Then we started chatting about Obama and health care. What has Obama done for you lately, he asked, before embarking into the bus.

Funny he should ask.

Last year, I benefited from a health insurance subsidy to help me pay for very good medical coverage as my wife tries to get her business off the ground.

We didn’t qualify for the subsidy this year, I added, and like everyone else I’m not happy about rising premiums and wondering whether health coverage will be affordable for much longer.

As he was about to take his seat, he seemed to soften a bit. Whatever happens this election cycle, things were going to be interesting, he said.

Not 48 hours later, they already had.

There on the screen during Monday night's presidential debate was another man, this one in a red tie and dark suit, who despite factual evidence to the contrary had convinced himself for years that the president wasn’t born in the U.S.

The small, quiet crowd of IRI attendees watched as the two major-party candidates slugged it out before the largest audience ever assembled for a nationally televised presidential debate.

I wasn’t close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation of IRI attendees to know how they felt about the debate, but a recent survey of investment advisors found that 46 percent of them would vote for Donald Trump and that 34 percent would vote for Hillary Clinton.

(Most of the participants were registered Republicans.)

Still, it seems advisors are more interested in keeping Clinton out of the White House than in voting Trump in.

Part of Trump’s appeal is that he’s the outsider, shoots from the hip and offers the best choice for economic growth, but I’m A) not convinced Trump believes what he says and B) not at all clear about what he believes.

How ironic for financial planners, then, that of the two candidates Clinton seems to be the one with the steadier hand proposing to guide the nation with a more coherent and well-thought-out plan.

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Writer Cyril Tuohy has covered the financial services industry for more than 15 years. Cyril may be reached at [email protected].
© Entire contents copyright 2016 by InsuranceNewsNet.com Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted without the expressed written consent from InsuranceNewsNet.com.