James, thanks for your response and for the quote/link. I've read your excerpt and will read the Dollar Vigilante article when I have a bit more time.

I think perhaps you misunderstand my point. I don't favor the bailout; I share the concern about misallocation of resources and malinvestment. The bailout was bad policy, and the Volt is a handy symbol of that bad policy. Complete alignment, I think.

Where I think we conservatives put ourselves at risk is maligning the car itself. It's futuristic. It's different. If you prize quiet and cleanliness (as I do for aesthetic, not political/eco-extremist, reasons), it's an interesting car.

There are 3 basic marketing archetypes: appeal to fear, "me too," and aspirational.  The left overweights "me too," applying peer pressure instead of logic. The right overweights appeal to fear. This is why Fox News is sustained by ads for gold brokers.

The young do not respond to appeals to fear. As conservatives, we need to find a way to speak to the dreams of voters. For some, it's having a futuristic car. Was Apollo a malinvestment? Maybe. But it wasn't a comical mistake.

I think it's a mistake for conservatives to continually heap scorn on the Volt. Yes, it's subsidized. So was the Concorde. Would you have turned down a chance to fly on the Concorde? Gas is $3.79 where I live, and electricity is cheap. Electric cars are quiet and clean. Can't we think of something better to criticize? Or are the optics of GM bailout/ poor sales/ appeal to Whole Foods shoppers just to much of an empty rhetorical net for "conservative" pundits to ignore?

Something tells me Hayek would have found bigger fish to fry than the Volt in times like these. I know where James is coming from, and he's an inspiration for me on the subject of the tyranny of the eco-cult. And yes, the USG wasted money on the GM bailout. Consensus all around. But the money's spent, and here we are left this product which is actually kind of amazing, in my opinion. I'm saving for the Cadillac version (ELR).

Let's leave it to the left to throw out babies with the bath water. 

"We can't wait!"

He did: last night he told O'Reilly's producer that there was nothing political about it.

If there's one celebrity that deserves the benefit of the doubt from the center-right, it's Clint Eastwood.

GM and Chrysler's brands are suffering from the bailout. It's an issue they need to confront and defuse. Marketing is how you do that.

A former boss, an accomplished CMO, once justified her choice of a controversial ad to the board this way: "half the people will love us for it. Half will hate us. But nobody will forget us."

Chrysler's ad was business, not politics. And it worked.

Can someone fill me in on the meaning of "March Hare" in Ann's context?

Sorry not to be hip to the argot.