Grover Norquist - Another GOP Skeleton That Is Staying In The Closet ...For Now

[Median Democrat]

In addition to Phil Gramm, another prominent right wing power broker that is curiously missing during this financial crisis is Grover Norquist. Grover was implicated during the Abramoff scandal, and he was visibly trying to rally right wingers to support John McCain prior to the selection of Palin. Norquist was visibly dictating John McCain's economic policies prior to the RNC convention, but has slinked back into the shadows during the most recent crisis. However, make no mistake. If John McCain is elected, economic policy will not be made by an academic or even an actual executive in the finance industry. Rather, like Bush, economic policy will be dictated by right wing zealots like Grover Norquist. Like or hate Paulson, but at least he recognized that the Treasury position was not worth taking unless he had real power. However, in 2006, the Rove White House had already done its damage. John McCain is merely a sequal to this bad movie. Its too bad that we can't condition a bail out on the election of Obama, because the last thing I want to see is Norquist in control of $700 billion.

Grover Norquist Defends McCain

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/14/norquist-defends-mccain-a_n_112658.html

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Top adviser Carly Fiorina added fuel to that fire when, in an interview with Bloomberg News, she said if a bipartisan coalition is "creative enough," a tax increase on wealthier Americans could be on the table.

"That is not McCain's position and he has made it very clear he will oppose and veto any tax increase. And you couldn't have a bipartisan measure that raises tax rates because 42 senators have all signed a statement not to raise the rate," said Norquist. "I assume that anyone who is speaking for the campaign will do so in a way that is consistent with McCain's position and if she is either misquoted or misspoke that should not in anyway reflect on McCain's consistent position on this subject."

Supplementing his remarks, Norquist had an aide send over documentary evidence of the three times McCain promised on national television to veto any tax increase.

"With the campaigns permission we have sent those three to everybody and their brother," Norquist noted. "So the presidential candidate McCain has made it clear, he has made it very clear, that he not only opposes any tax increase but will pursue three significant tax cuts."

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Grover Norquist says Republicans are energized by Palin's candidacy

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/09/01/activist-conservatives-will-rally-around-palin-despite-her-daughters-pregnancy.html

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PAUL—Republican conservatives will remain enthusiastic supporters of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin despite her daughter's newly revealed personal problems, according to a prominent conservative activist.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, says many segments of the Republican right are energized by Palin's candidacy and that won't change despite Palin's public acknowledgement Monday that her unmarried 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant, will keep the baby, and marry the father.

"It's an example of how pro-life they are—pro-marriage and pro-family," Norquist says. "This stuff happens and they are not hypocrites... This will have the effect of reinforcing her support."

Norquist says Palin, the staunchly conservative governor of Alaska, has quickly become very popular not only among anti-abortion activists but also among other key groups in the conservative movement, including gun enthusiasts, supporters of domestic energy development, those who want government to more aggressively fight corruption, conservatives who like the idea of a Washington outsider doing battle with inside-the Beltway elites, and those who favor smaller government.

And Palin has displayed the toughness, likeability, and savvy to do well in her scheduled debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden this fall, Norquist says.

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Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010514/dreyfuss

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Stocky, bearded and owlish, Norquist, 45, is a thumb-in-the-eye radical rightist whose tactical sophistication and singularity of purpose has led observers to compare him, with some drollery, to Lenin. A Harvard-educated intellectual and self-conscious student of the left, over the past decade Norquist has eclipsed such older stalwarts as Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, David Keene of the American Conservative Union and Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation to emerge as the managing director of the hard-core right in Washington. But while firmly planted on the extreme end of the political spectrum, Norquist has also built a solid working alliance with the Fortune 500 corporate elite and its K Street lobbyists. "What he's managed to do is to chain the ideological conservatives together with the business guys, who have money, and to put that money to work in the service of the conservative movement," says Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America's Future, who's repeatedly clashed with Norquist. "And he picks big issues." Besides taxes, Norquist is also the go-to guy on virtually all of the right's favorite agenda items, from privatization of Social Security and Medicare to school vouchers and deregulation.

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[Median Democrat]

1. Anyone Else Wondering What Happened To The RW Extremists That Have Controlled GOP Economic Policy?

I recall reading Paul O'Neill's book, the Price of Loyalty, that noted how he essentially stripped of policy making authority, and that economic policy was dictated by the White House with little input from the Treasury Department. The role of guys like Grover Norquist, who have supported McCain, and were instrumental in the selection of Sarah Palin, should be getting more ink.