Political Orientation of Stamp Collectors

Observers of philatelists have long believed that stamp collectors are a very conservative group politically. We don’t have Gallup polls, but through letters to the editor of philatelic publications and personal conversations most of us believe our group to be well to the right on the political spectrum. True we have our liberal outliers but if only stamp collectors were to vote in the 2012 Presidential election it is likely that we’d be criticizing a President Romney a year from now rather than a President Obama. But with political affiliations, demography is destiny and as a group stamp collectors tend to be more conservative largely because they tend to be older, whiter and maler than the population as a whole. Create a group of demographic specs-a young, urban, Hispanic woman for instance- and a political scientist call tell the percentage liklihood that she is a Democrat or Republican. Oddly, and again this is anecdotal, I think that stamp collectors are actually less politically conservative than their straight demographic make up should suggest. This is because there are a number of very well educated philatelists. Again demographically though political affiliation sways rightward the wealthier and older a person gets, the more years of post graduate education that a person has seems to counterbalence back to the left. Philately has always attracted the well educated and so has had a more leftward leaning population than straight demographics would suggest. My guess is that given all these factors that among serious stamp collectors there is about a 60/40 skew towards Republican affiliation among people in our hobby.