I Met Grover Norquist

I’ve spent the last few days at the annual conference for the National Council of State Legislatures, listening to all sorts of topics affecting state governments across the nation. But I have to admit I was especially excited to have a chance to hear right-wing puppeteer Grover Norquist on a panel about taxation.

For those of you who don’t know Norquist, he’s the President of Americans for Tax Reform, a right wing think tank that thinks taxes are worse than Osama Bin Laden. He’s the guy who famously (infamously?) said, “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” He also helps coordinate the entire far right on a variety of issues, making him one of their most powerful strategists.

I couldn’t wait to see just how powerful and persuasive he was.

I have to admit some disappointment.

First, he is hardly a likeable guy. He was smug, arrogant and not at all self depreciating. He started out by attacking pretty much every legislator in the room, Democrat and Republican, by saying you can’t trust any politician while he was asking us to sign his pledge to never raise taxes.

Don’t get me wrong, he is formidable. He is very smart. But packaged in that “I got my ass kicked in high school, and now you’ll all pay” perennial geek persona, he isn’t smart enough to know how to really influence people.

He offered far right platitudes about taxes. He kept telling us how powerful he was. But he was not persuasive in his arguments that the tax pledge offered by his organization is really on behalf of our constituents, not the almighty Norquist. Then he proceeded to tell us just how he determines what his pledge actually means. It seems our constituents have proxied their voices to Norquist to tell us what is a violation of the pledge, on a case-by-case basis.

He certainly has the ear of federal politicians. George W. Bush and a majority of Congress have signed a federal pledge not to raise taxes. Instead, they just increase the deficit, and pass any real costs for homeland security, the war and the like on to future generations.

But he only has about a third of state legislators gullible enough to sign his pledge, a dismal failure for such a bright guy (just ask him, he‘s really bright, he'll tell you). When asked about that failure, he only offered a pledge to have sixty percent of legislators on board in ten years.

He explained that Bush the First lost because he signed the pledge, but then raised taxes. Bet you didn’t even know about that pledge then did you? But he takes credit. Norquist claims Bush “ruined an otherwise good presidency”.

He even trashed Governor Arnold for not being right wing-zealot enough.

But in the end, I have to admit disappointment. He had one moment where I thought he had an especially good line. But other than that, legislator after legislator asked questions of him which he really didn’t answer very convincingly.

There are chinks in that right wing warrior’s armor after all. I’m glad. But it was nice to finally meet one of the main architects of all that is wrong with politics, Grover Norquist.

Now I just hope to run into Karl Rove some day.