Via Dave Weigel, Tampa Bay Times reporters Michale Van Sickler and John Martin on the The Villages, its developer, and how it’s been set up to “provide a foundation for Republican candidates“:
… Their playground is a 5-square-mile area about 90 miles northeast of Tampa Bay that once was rolling cow pasture and ripe watermelon fields. Disneyland for Adults or the Bubble is what residents call it now. The grandkids call it Seniors Gone Wild…
Drawing retirees from the Northeast and Midwest, this planned community is one of the most critical — and dependable — voting blocs in the nation. The development’s 61,000 registered voters reside in a battleground region Republicans need to dominate if they are to defeat President Barack Obama in November.
Twice as many Republicans as Democrats live here. Independents tilt rightward, too. With a turnout averaging 80 percent, it has become a fixed stop on the campaign trail for Mitt Romney, who has visited twice in the past year.
One man is credited with molding this constituency.
The creator of the Villages, H. Gary Morse, inherited his father’s development business and turned it into one of the most lucrative residential projects in the United States, ushering him into the ranks of the world’s richest. Morse and his family have contributed $1.8 million to the cause of removing Obama from the White House.
His biggest contribution, however, will be the Villages vote on Election Day. Now 75, Morse controls just about every facet of life here. And that includes politics…
He not only sold the project’s 40,000 homes, but he owns the mortgage company that financed many of them. He owns part of the bank, too. And the hospital, the water and sewer utility, the TV and radio stations, newspaper, monthly magazine, country clubs and commercial center that has lured a T.G.I. Friday’s, Panera Bread Bakery Cafe, Starbucks, Barnes and Noble, and IZOD…
Morse didn’t return phone calls, and his staffers won’t disclose which of the several offices he works at in the Villages. His spokesman, Gary Lester, would not comment. The top lobbyist for the Villages, former state GOP chairman Al Cardenas, hung up on a reporter asking about Morse…
By 1992, the development had about 3,500 acres. Morse lined up further expansion by getting the project approved as a special taxing district. The designation let Morse float tax-free municipal bonds that could be paid back by fees charged to residents.
Morse has since established 12 special taxing districts, which between November 1993 and October 2004 issued a total of $426 million in bond principal — all of it tax exempt, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Of that debt, about $300 million has yet to be paid back….
Morse’s sights are set beyond Central Florida, too. Since 1999, Morse and his family have given at least $6.3 million to state and federal races. He was a Ranger for George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, meaning he helped raise at least $200,000. He has frequently let politicians fly aboard his jets. Jeb Bush and his two sons flew on one of the jets to the 2002 Rose Bowl, reimbursing Morse for the cost of a commercial airline ticket.
This March, Morse and his family contributed $80,000 to Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election committee and is a member of Romney’s Florida finance team. He and his family have contributed $1.8 million to Romney and Romney-aligned groups in the most-recent presidential cycle…
Read the whole thing. Property control, local taxation authority, and socially-sanctioned authoritarianism enforced via media domination: The only difference between H. Gary Morse and your average feudal baron is better medical technology and worse public architecture. Sure, the serfs, peasants and petty nobility of The Villages could ‘vote with their feet’ — except the service workers and store owners can’t actually afford to do so, and the lordlings would rather be middling-big fish in their own little castle pond than risk life in wider waters. God bless the Squire and his relations, and keep us all in our proper stations!