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

by John Moe (Author)
Key Phrases: little red hen, golden fiddle, conservative messages, The Experiment, President George, The Gay (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As a Seattle public radio commentator deeply entrenched in a liberal mindset, Moe wondered whether a sudden immersion in conservatism could change his worldview-so he saturated himself with nothing but right wing people, media and culture for an entire month. His subsequent misadventures are of uneven quality: thoughtful conversations with National Review editor Rich Lowry and talk radio host Michael Medved, among others, are interspersed with awkward attempts to provoke representatives of groups like the Family Research Council. At a visit to a fundamentalist church service, for example, he repeatedly asks if they'll be "able to stop The Gay" from destroying marriage. Moe also takes easy potshots at country music, SUVs and other red-state staples, and watches movies like Red Dawn and Forrest Gump for purported conservative themes. Conversations with conservative intellectuals, which force him to acknowledge greater shades of ambiguity, provide less fodder for mockery. His commonsense conclusion-exposure to new ideas can be eye opening, if not exactly transformative-will confirm the attitude of readers who have already embraced political complexity.
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Product Description

It has been said that everyone in America is firmly planted in red or blue—permanently conservative or irreversibly liberal. But are we all really that locked in to the left or the right? A lifelong liberal, John Moe was determined to find out. So he reset his radio dials from NPR to Rush Limbaugh, joined some of today's most influential conservative thinkers for a series of "conversion sessions," made pilgrimages to the Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon museums, and spent the Fourth of July in the most Bush-friendly county in the country, in an attempt to discover if there was actually a conservative trapped inside him yearning to be set free.

Conservatize Me is a fresh, humorous, and highly entertaining look at our country's political landscape, one that will strike a powerful chord with millions of disgruntled Americans while stimulating the mind and tickling the funny bone.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060854014
• ISBN-13: 978-0060854010
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 3.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #564,128 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair, Balanced and Funny, October 8, 2006

By	Andy Jensen (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

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.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars delightfully funny exposé on those who are right, October 4, 2006

By	Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

A self proclaimed leftist, NPR talk-show host John Moe spent nine months limiting himself to known acceptable conservative groups for news such as the Washington Times, Fox News, Russ Limbaugh, Weekly Standard and National Review; country music stations only, and roving "Krystal Klear" milieus like rodeos and NASCAR. He visited the Reagan and Nixon Presidential Libraries (Nixon's contains his key scandal while Reagan's ignores his in spite of convictions and confessions with Bush senior pardons). Finally his objective was to better understand conservative thinking especially in America's Heartland.

Though anecdotal and often amusing, Mr. Moe concludes there are two types of conservatives in this country. On the one hand he disdains those he met at a college conference who in his mind are offspring of Machiavelli and Lady MacBeth, as power is everything (consider that war reelects presidents) or ignore negatives re their "heroes". On the other side, Mr. Moe admires Mayor Shawn Larsen of Rexburg, Idaho who is a devoted logical person wanting to make government effective and efficient. He admits being from liberal Seattle making the trek through the Red states at times felt like Frodo seeking to rid himself of the ring as the conservative take on movies make for an overall delightfully funny exposé on those who are right.

Harriet Klausner

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Entertaining Quest to Become a Conservative, February 13, 2007

By	E. David Swan (South Euclid, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

`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 wait for Washington cynicism to corrupt you when you can be unscrupulous right out of the box?

In the end the author seems to reach a state of détente with Conservativism describing himself as a "mishmash of neo-Nixonian-quasi-Libertarianism". The funny thing is that it's very much a quality of Liberalism that permits the author to try and understand both sides of the political spectrum. John Moe says to his young son, "I don't think I love him [George W. Bush]. But I don't think I hate him either. He's just doing what he thinks he should do" There is a certain amount of naivety in his statement. By that standard Hitler and Stalin could be defended. Still, I found `Conservatize Me' to be one of the most readable books I've picked up in quite some time and I recommend it without reservation.