You are totally right about the right-wing people, most of them just try to create a safe space for their loved ones. They are often falsely led by people with double agenda's, and labeled wrongly and pushed into corners by media and all.
As for local politics... I was totally baffled past summer, when we had local elections (well, elections in october, but the work started in summer). We tried to get involved with it, with exactly the idea in mind as you described above, but we came to the conclusion that the majority of people that wanted to get elected, only did it to push through their own agenda, or for the possible payments they would receive...
!BBH
!DIY
!HOPE
!INDEED
!PIZZA
!LOLZ