Help me convert a Bush voter!

This story is a little too long to explain in three paragraphs.  So let me just summarise by noting that this guy (and dozens more like him) are shocked that a group of politicians who originally ran on "less regulation, lower taxes, smaller government" have sold off city-owned wilderness/watershed land to private interests who will proceed to ruin it.  Specifically, this guy (whose name is Tom) complained to me "This sale would be like if the federal government sold off Yellowstone to help pay for their deficit."  I said "George Bush would sell off Yellowstone if he thought he could get away with it!"  Tom very angrily yelled back at me "Oh no, he would not!" and stormed away.

I am trying to tie this in to a larger issue of right wing philosophy, because I think it's important to take this beyond Tom's narrow focus--what good will it do to fight this one decision if he and people like him continue to vote Republican?!?  I need your help to prove to him that it's all part and parcel of the same mentality.

Our town/city's (17K pop.) City Council has been, in the last year, taken over by right wingers.  (Previously, it was surprisingly progressive for a place that went about 55-60% for Bush and Blunt).  The candidate who started this takeover scowled and griped in her campaign commercials about the city having used tax dollars for such projects as an aquatic center and a hike/bike trail.  Though the elections here are technically nonpartisan, that was enough to prove to me that she was a right wing piece of s**t.  Alas, she won.  On a five-member council, though, she was generally outvoted the first year.  

Then the majority overreached.  In our college town, the students almost never vote in municipal elections, even though they could dominate them if they wished.  Still, the council had several members who had ties with the university (retired professors, etc.); and they responded to student complaints about unethical slumlords who rented dangerous apartments to students by passing a rental housing ordinance.  As originally drafted, this ordinance was modest enough that it would have been palatable, I think.  But then they increased it to the point where it would have been so expensive and intrusive as to be a kind of parody of liberal "nanny" government run amok.  

Two more right wing candidates (who happened to be big landlords) ran last spring, essentially against this ordinance.  They racked up huge donations from other landlords, while the incumbents naively stated "we never have had to raise money before, and we can stand on our record".  You can guess who won.

This group has had control of the council now since last summer, and I have been attending meetings and trying to sound the alarm since then.  They rescinded the rental housing ordinance, and refused (somewhat sheepishly) to even pass in its place a simple requirement to install carbon monoxide detectors.  They canceled plans to expand the city's hike/bike trails, even though one of the two other councilmembers pointed out that the construction was 75% paid for by MODOT.  One councilman who I call "Grumpy Old Man" growled in response, "they won't pay for the maintenance".  

Meanwhile, the woman who blazed the right wing trail constantly spouts off about "small government", and the third guy just does whatever the other two tell him to.  A sweet lady who is the final member of the council complained at one meeting, "we can have a progressive city, or we can just shut everything down" but she is of course in the minority.  And even the fire department was under the knife for cuts, and not very happy about it as you can imagine.

Still, few people seemed to get very exercised about this council, and I kind of threw my hands up in frustration.  That all changed when they decided to sell the land around Hazel Creek Lake to a buddy of theirs, despite the opposition of hundreds of citizens who attended a packed meeting at the junior high auditorium.  As I noted in the introduction, Tom (who is leading a movement to try to pass a referendum to undo their decision and re-acquire the land through eminent domain) does not see the wider issue here.  He is an avid outdoorsman (hunter/fisherman etc.) who thinks this council does not represent conservative/GOP values, but rather are just personally and specifically corrupt.  (You can see more about the lake at his site, though it's surprisingly a little out of date: http://www.mosportsmen.com/lakes/hazelcr2005.htm)

Now, it does look like that (being personally corrupt) might be the case as well, since there has now been a new development: the guy I call "Grumpy Old Man" was stopped for driving drunk, and the cop who stopped him did not arrest him but instead called one of the other members of his voting bloc on the Council to come get him!  Still, while this behaviour can not necessarily be predicted by someone's campaign message (though I'd argue it's more frequently found among right wingers, I can't prove it), I believe the actions they have actually taken as part of their official duties were very predictable to anyone who would open their eyes and see.

So, do any of you have stats and links for me on cases where Republicans (especially Bush) have tried similar things on a national or state level?  It seems that what I've read about the Schweitzer victory in Montana, it may have resulted from something a little similar.  Guys like Tom were, I think, key to Schweitzer's win there, and it appears this could be a golden opportunity for us on the left to use as a "wedge" to peel off badly needed rural white male voters.

•  Conversion

  Ye who earnestly  repent of you sins and are in harmony with all your neighbors....

  That kind of conversion?

  by TarheelDem on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 01:03:58 PM PDT

•  No talk

  just action will convince your friend.  Remember the saying that all politics is local.  I suggest allying progressives with those like Tom on this cause.  Only through common action will these people come to realize that all rightwingers are the same and that they do not value the same things that the rest of us do.
  

  by blueinnc on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 01:14:31 PM PDT

•  on the commons.

  you can tell your freind that Bush's right wing DOES want to sell off any public land it can. The "Ownership Society" narrative maintain that privately ownership is the best way to maintain land and the environment. Public ownership is a boogeyman, and corporate ownership ensures that people work to protect there assets. Rove would sell off every piece of public land he could, if it wouldn't havce electoral repercussions. Check out the Cato institute on Ownership Society. It is very scary and is exactly what your friend fears.

  Republicans don't want freedom and unintrusive power in general. They want the intrusive power to be private, because the altruism embodied in defending the "public interest" is inherently flawed. Greed is good, and corporate greed is better.

  by srolle on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 01:53:05 PM PDT

  •  ...the libertarian strain.

    They'd truly love to see toll booths at every street corner, after auctioning off all municipally-owned streets...

    by PKinTexas on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 02:04:04 PM PDT

•  Whenever you talk with him...

  ...stick with the facts of a situation, what the parties did, what the stakes were, etc., and the outrageousness of the reality probably has more likelihood of changing his Republican mind.

  Whatever you do, avoid ad hominem remarks and never appear to personally dislike the Republican miscreant, whoever he or she may be.  That, I have found, is always a losing proposition.

  As frustrating as it can be NOT to vent at these unconscious, intellectually lazy people, the beauty is that BushCo has provided and keeps providing us with such outrageous facts that there's an inexhaustible supply...

  by PKinTexas on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 02:01:50 PM PDT

  •  P.S.

    I didn't "model" very well there when I said "miscreant," showing you I know how hard it is...

    by PKinTexas on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 02:05:31 PM PDT

  •  But HE personally dislikes them

    That's part of the problem: he sees the problem as being one of people who are individually bad--he doesn't see the larger picture in terms of how ideology is involved.

    I had a little more discussion with him just now (not as much as I'd like, but I had to go); and he said he would never be a Democrat, because he doesn't like unions and thinks they ought to drill in the Arctic but just make sure they use a small "footprint".  I answered that I didn't categorically oppose ANWAR drilling if there were genuine environmental groups (which I pointed out meant Democrats, basically) who would oversee it.  He said the environment has been getting better for thirty years, and I responded that this was because of Democrats.  He claimed that both Republicans and Democrats want to protect the environment; I snorted at that and that's where we left it for now.

    by SlackerInc on Fri Feb 04, 2005 at 02:09:28 PM PDT