Sowing the Seeds of GOP Domination

[kskiska]

Conservative Norquist Cultivates Grass Roots Beyond the Beltway

Monday, January 12, 2004; Page A01

(snip)

Diners brushed past the men unaware, as Ken Mehlman and Grover Norquist hopscotched across state lines, refining what Norquist calls, with a wink, "our secret plan to seize power." Mehlman, the Bush-Cheney campaign manager, and Norquist, gardener of the conservative grass roots, were discussing a new tactic for the 2004 election: The campaign would activate the conservative base as it never had before.

Norquist, 47, is known for his weekly strategy sessions of conservatives, a Washington institution. But quietly, for the past five years, he also has been building a network of "mini-Grover" franchises. He has crisscrossed the country, hand-picking leaders, organizing meetings of right-wing advocates in 37 states. The network will meet its first test in the presidential race. On this evening at Harry's, several blocks from campaign headquarters in Arlington, Norquist presented his master contact list to Mehlman, mapped out and bound in a book.

"Fabulous, Grover. Awesome," Mehlman said, scanning the book like a hungry man reading a menu. "We're going to take that energy and harness it."

The binder was Norquist's gift to the presidential race. His aspirations, though, extend far beyond the White House. Congress, governorships, state legislatures, the media, the courts -- Norquist has a programming plan, and it is all Republican, all the time. Norquist closes his letters, "Onward." He takes the mission so seriously, he has named a successor in his will. Socially, he is often introduced as the head of the vast right-wing conspiracy. He accepts the title with a faint blush.

"He is an impresario of the center-right," the president's strategist, Karl Rove, said in an interview. Rove said Norquist's activists helped President Bush push trade promotion, tax cuts, judicial nominees and tort reform, among other items. "They've been out there slogging for us in the trenches."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8423-2004Jan11.html

[salin]

1. Rove calls norquist... center right? Now that's spin

n/t

[mbperrin]

2. Sin to the right?

Sounds accurate.

[raifield]

3. Literally chilling...

"We're trying to get Alexander and Voinovich to behave. Any advice appreciated."

There is something inherently chilling about that statement.

It's almost like a Franchise. You aren't electing a Republican to represent you on certain issues, you're electing a Republican to open up a politcal franchise in your state, which is the same franchise as it is in all the other states.

Yeah, great idea guys! </sarcasm>

[young_at_heart]

4. This is not the country I have known for 64 years

I want my country back!!!

[GOPFighter]

5. Norquist is monomaniacal!

He really and truly HATES government. He is driven like no one else I've ever met to crush every government program, every safety net, every regulatory agency there is. In some ways he's an anarchist. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the country Norquist envisions would mimic some of the worst third-world nations, and yet millions of Americans want just that. Why?

[cosmicaug]

6. Why.

GOPFighter wrote:

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the country Norquist envisions would mimic some of the worst third-world nations, and yet millions of Americans want just that. Why?

Third world nations are not so bad if you have a lot of money and the Horatio Alger myths mean a lot of people think it is likely that, thought they may not have a lot of money now, hard work and some lifting oneself by one's bootstraps action might get them to the point where they will have a lot of money (and who would want all those dirty lucky ducky people to force one to pay their share of taxes when that happens?).

If you do have a lot of money, third world nations can be a great place to live in and if you don't have a lot of money, it is because you don't deserve it (so you really shouldn't count). The poor are worthy of contempt (if they weren't, they wouldn't be poor); social engineering of progressive taxation, welfare state policies, etc. reward the undeserving (a group for which no one wants to admit membership) and so forth.

[WindRavenX]

7. It started with the "recall" of Gov. Davis

California was targeted by the GOP in order to deliver CA to Bush in '04.
No one noticed.

[Printer70]

8. What is this about?

"He is often described as an eccentric. For a bedside table, Norquist uses a giant green canister for Kraft parmesan cheese. He displays what he hopes will be the world's largest collection of airsickness bags. At staff meetings, employees say, he holds court while variously sitting on a giant red plastic ball, eating tuna from a can, rubbing his feet against a massager and sniffing hand lotion as he kneads it into his fingers. He excuses himself to go to "the ladies room."

Are they trying to make him look crazy or is it just him?

[Cooley Hurd]

10. I guess it's just him...

"...he holds court while variously sitting on a giant red plastic ball, eating tuna"

All this time I've thought he was "ideologically" nuts. This proves that he's nuts-nuts!

[Judi Lynn]

9. Who would have guessed he'd get this much power?

He's simply an odd, odd person, in conventional terms, if you've seen him speaking on C-Span.

From the article:

(snip) His manner is charming, though bitterness creeps into his voice when he talks about classmates at Harvard, where he attended college ('78) and business school ('81). As a Republican, Norquist felt isolated among the students, whom he calls "Bolsheviks." At a reunion in the early 1990s, he said, he told a classmate: "For 40 years we fought a two-front war against the Soviet Union and state-ism. Now we can turn all our time and energy to crushing you. With the Soviet Union, it was just business. With you, it's personal." (snip)

(snip)"He's the engine that empowers us all," said Gary Maloney, a Republican consultant and friend. "I call him up and say, 'What should I think?' " (snip)

(snip) Democrats used to anger him, Norquist said. He's past angry now. "Do you get mad at cancer? We'll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We're not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover's world. I feel about the left the way Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis."

And after Norquist purges the United States, there is the rest of the world. He says this with the confidence of a man who uses a black laundry marker as a pen. He has helped start Wednesday meetings in Canada, New Zealand, England and Japan. He has learned to be patient: "I now understand you can't just explain to the idiots how to do it and to see it your way, because they're too foolish to see it." (snip)

Thanks to kskiska for the article.

[ithacan]

11. all the hallmarks of fascism, really

This is just amazing. Norquist hides nothing. He's totally honest about his totalitarian vision:


Democrats used to anger him, Norquist said. He's past angry now. "Do you get mad at cancer? We'll defeat and crush their institutions, and the trial lawyers will go sell pizza. We're not going to hang them. Most of the people on the left will be happy in Grover's world. I feel about the left the way Rumsfeld felt about the Iraqis."

And after Norquist purges the United States, there is the rest of the world. He says this with the confidence of a man who uses a black laundry marker as a pen. He has helped start Wednesday meetings in Canada, New Zealand, England and Japan. He has learned to be patient: "I now understand you can't just explain to the idiots how to do it and to see it your way, because they're too foolish to see it."

This could be word for word out of the playbook of the nazis or any other fascist strategist anywhere in the world. Amazing that this now passes in the Washington Post as normal political behavior...

[LizW2]

12. I don't even know what to call this

naked, undisguised desire to crush all opposition, to grab for oneself all the benefits and good things of the world, to literally destroy the nation just for the game of it.

How long before these people start eating human flesh, just because they can probably get away with it?

:scared: :puke:

[GAspnes]

13. gotta keep an eye on this guy

Terry Gross: Excuse me. Excuse me one second. Did you just ...

Grover Norquist: Yeah?

Terry Gross: ? compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?

Grover Norquist: No, the morality that says it's OK to do something to do a group because they're a small percentage of the population is the morality that says that the Holocaust is OK because they didn't target everybody, just a small percentage.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1008-07.htm

[yellowcanine]

14. I believe Blumenfeld gave Grover enough rope to hang himself

It reads almost like a puff piece on first blush but the direct quotes are so damning that I think old Grover may regret his candor. Funny but everytime I hear Grover's name I think of the Sesame Street character. Wasn't he the cookie monster? I guess that would be about right. Greedy Grover.

[CBHagman]

15. Oh, Norquist's pure evil has been on display for some time.

Richard Cohen, a regular columnist with the Washington Post (He's also syndicated, as it happens) went ballistic when he got wind of the quote in which Norquist compared the estate tax with the Holocaust.

Norquist is also behind the naked Ronald Reagan idolatry movement, the one where they want to name something after Reagan in every state in the union, regardless of how the locals feel, regardless of what it costs the locals.

And yes, this guy is basically a scary facist totalitarian who would adore making this country the opposite of an industrialized nation. It's going to make Brazil look like paradise, if Norquist gets his way -- gated communities, increased disparities in income, a shattering of the public school system AND policing, etc., etc.

The sad thing is that all these fools really believe in is low taxes and a sick form of personality worship.

But Bush is following some of the Norquist model. Note the following:

*Bush has pursued a regressive tax code, particularly elimination of the estate tax.

*Bush has requested that community policing funds be zeroed out.

*Bush is pursuing privatization of Social Security and the educational system. Did you catch his remarks on vouchers and the blatant sucking up to the Catholic Church?

People, get the word out on this. Norquist needs to be revealed for the demon he is.