The Conservative Reach / Preaching the Gospel of Small Government
Source: By JASON DEPARLE, New York Times, November 17, 2006
Lawrence W. Reed is one of those people with so much passion for an unusual line of work that he invented a new occupation, and it has helped shape the conservative movement from here to the Himalayas.
........ From Midland, Mr. Reed runs Mackinac (pronounced MAK-in-aw), the largest of the right’s state-level policy institutes. The center started its training program eight years ago, and it has alumni in nearly every state and 37 countries, from Uruguay to Nepal. Among them was a Mongolian who went on to become prime minister, putting his free-market training to work by privatizing the national herd of yaks.
....... The Mackinac Center has often battled the Michigan Education Association, a teachers’ union. When the union opposed privatizing support services, like school meals and security, a Mackinac employee monitored the union parking lot and discovered that it used private contractors like the ones it was opposing. “We don’t just write papers, we do stakeouts,” Mr. Reed said.