Conservatives are stupid, right?

How exactly did Conservatives become associated with unintelligent red necks?  And on the other side of the coin how did Liberals get the reputation for being smart and educated?

All the wealthy and successful people I know are conservatives.  They own fine homes and businesses, play the stock market, their kids go the private schools.  These are people who go to college and expect that same of their children and such.

Conversely I've known a number of liberals who really weren't so bright.  People who are well into their 40s who have no savings for retirement, people who exercise no authority over their children.  People who run out to the car dealership every year to lease some new car they can barely make payments on.  Burnt out dead heads who still think it's cool to get high, et cetera.

I know both sides have their fair share of each kind, but from my experiences it looks like conservatives have a reputation they don't really deserve.  They tend to be unwilling to look through another culture's point of view, and unfortunately take to religion, but so far as I know most conservative people are educated and good with money.

I think you guys forget that conservative-ness and liberal-ness changes with the times.  The conservatives of today were actually liberals in the past.  If the liberals of today get their way and legislation changes, then some years in the future all of todays liberals will become conservatives.

By definition, a conservative is a person that wants the status-quo to stay the same - so of course you know a lot of successful, rich conservatives because they're making good with the status-quo.  They don't want things to change or else their piggy bank will start to slim.

On the other hand, liberals are by definition seeking change - and what's a better incentive to want change than being in poor living conditions?