Fairfield, the center of Transcendental Meditation in the U.S., is a hotbed of support for Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. Earth & Water regulars Jeff Shipley and Roger Leahy helped turn it and surrounding Jefferson County into a stronghold for Paul’s father, Ron, the Texas congressman who came in a close third in the 2012 Iowa caucuses. Now they’re using Earth & Water as a base to help Rand get all the way to the White House. “There’s a self-reliant attitude here,” says Shipley. “The people who want to end the wars and end NSA spying are the same people who want to be able to sell raw milk.”

In 2011, Ron Paul fans made converts and won volunteers among Fairfield’s devotees by canvassing the city’s monthly art festival and its health food stores. “I’ve been supporting the peace movement since Nixon bombed Haiphong harbor,” says Leahy, who moved to Fairfield in 1974 to be close to other practitioners. “When we organized in 2012, downtown, the office had a silhouette of Ron Paul that said underneath it: I’m voting for peace. Ron Paul’s attitude was that many of the problems we’re getting into around the world could stop if we practiced peace.”…

Followers of the maharishi, who died in 2008, frequently see themselves on a journey to fix the world—not through conquest but through expanding minds.