Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, and Beef Jerky

A great book. Surprising that it is not more well-known. Author has a humorous way of showing the good and bad of both sides. Through this process of self-discovery, the author comes to the conclusion that he is in the middle of both sides. Such an enlightened viewpoint is a breath of fresh air from the many extremists who don't want to be confused with the facts. Highly recommended no matter your political persuasion.

`Conservatize Me' asks a question that has plagued me for years. What is the allure of Conservativism and why does it completely bypass some people like myself? But more importantly, is it possible to transform yourself into a Conservative true believer by immersing yourself in Conservativism? Does Conservativism bloom from nature or nurture? In the spirit of `Super Size Me' John Moe decides to become a Conservative for 30 days to see the effects. The author's quest to become a Conservative is consistently entertaining, generally engaging, often thought provoking and occasionally poignant. For the most part, the book remains dignified in its approach to Conservativism. Sure he turns himself into a walking stereotype with a mix of stuffy business suits and cheap, patriotic t-shirts, surviving on beef jerky and Coors beer while listening to Charlie Daniels. But the author shows a fair amount respect for the views of the high profile Conservatives he meets including Rich Lowry, Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg and Michael Medved. Jeff Gannon on the other hand... not so much. Of course he missed meeting the even more popular and truly toxic Conservative voices like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. One thing I noticed was how dramatically different the Conservative message is when explained to `liberal' John Moe than when spoken to an audience of true believers. At one point the author turns off Limbaugh's program because he finds it more repellant than alluring as a siren for Conservativism. On the other hand his visit to Rexberg, Idaho, a city that had the highest percentage (92) of voters voting for Bush in 2004 was an extremely pleasant experience and the author was left wondering why the residence of his hometown of Seattle couldn't be so nice. A few things stuck with me after I read the book. Most striking was Conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg's insistence that the left obsesses too much over hypocrisy. Goldberg stated that, "[to become a Conservative] you're going to have to give up this weird mainline addiction to pointing out hypocrisy. It's funny because hypocrisy is perhaps the most distasteful aspects of high moral, pro-family Republicans and fundamentalist Christians and here was Goldberg shamelessly embracing it. Goldberg was also quoted as saying, "I have no great pride in being a Republican". Understandable. Being a shameless Conservative comes in handy, for instance, when the author visited the College Republican's National Convention. Despite being filled with military age males who support the `defining conflict of our generation' there seemed to be little talk of the Iraqi conflict and certainly no interest in joining it. The Convention was meeting in order to elect a new chairman. For John Moe the race pitted a charismatic, well spoken young Republican against a much less dynamic but more Karl Rovish candidate. In the end Karl Rove jr. won. "He was tainted with scandal but his loyalists disregarded that history". Why

John Moe is my new favorite writer! In a non-judgmental fashion (which for me, would be near impossible), he sets out on a quest to understand Red-State America. Very readable and highly entertaining.

I could give this hilarious and honest book to my granola-chewing Bush-hating mom and my hunting-loving, tax-cutting enviromental advisor to Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Montana) uncle (I'm not kidding) and they would both love it. Not only would they laugh but they each could quote parts of the book to each other and say "See this part here? It proves i'm right!" Moe doesn't take any cheap shots at either the left or right like I did in my opening sentence, but simply recounts what it was like to immerse oneself in a conservative lifestyle and ideology. Enjoy.