of the Cold War, managed the decline of the Soviet Union, Iraq out of Ku- wait, many, many successes. One fail- ure [and he] lost the presidency.” The reason the pledge is so power-
ful today, Norquist says, is that voters punished Bush and made him a one- term president. “That’s when the pledge became
powerful,” the anti-tax watchdog says. “A president of the United States won the primary because he took the pledge, won the general election be- cause he said ‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ and he took the pledge, and then he lost a perfectly good presiden- cy, threw it away, by raising taxes.” By 1994, Norquist says, ATR was
hitting “Ivory soap percentages” in Republicans taking the pledge. “And voters said, You know, the Repub- lican candidates just watched their candidate commit political suicide by raising taxes. I think they learned not to do that. So when they tell me they won’t, and they took the pledge in writing, I bet they mean it.”
ACKNOWLEDGING OPPOSITION Of course, not all Republicans
think the pledge is such a great idea. Any observer of cable news programs knows there is an ongoing whisper campaign against it. Some GOP poli- ticians curry favor with mainstream pundits, insisting they resent the pledge and want to get out from un- der it. Norquist readily acknowl-
edges there are Republicans who have what he calls “impure thoughts” on taxes. But he scoff s at the notion that Republicans are on the verge of renouncing their pledges. “Really?” he challenges. “Name
one. Name one who will stand up and say they want to raise taxes.” And that, arguably, is the bottom line when it comes to evaluating the vaunted power of Grover Norquist. If voters didn’t despise taxes so much, he would have no power at all. Joe Scarborough, the former GOP
congressman and MSNBC host, has said the notion Norquist orchestrated
the supercommittee’s stalemate is downright risible. “Anybody today trying to blame
Grover Norquist or to suggest that Grover Norquist is somehow more powerful than the president of the United States and the United States Senate, which everybody in Wash- ington knows runs Washington. It’s not the House. It is the upper cham- ber. And the Democrats own it. They are close to a monopoly of Washing- ton, D.C. But to blame this on Grover
“Whatever a politician promises when they’re in campaign mode tends to evaporate after they’ve been in Washington for a while. So this [pledge] was meant to be a way of reminding them why they were sent there and what their constituents expected. As far as branding goes, I think it’s pretty powerful.”
— Heather R. Higgens, president and CEO, Independent Women’s Voice
Norquist is laughable,” he said. If Democrats really want to make
the case that Norquist is exerting an undue gravitational pull on politics, they’re probably looking in the wrong place. Norquist estimates about half of ATR’s eff orts have nothing to do with Washington politics. He esti- mates the organization spends about $8 million “highlighting” candidates’ positions on taxes in the 2010 mid- term elections, and a lot of that mon-
ey was devoted to infl uencing out- comes on the state level. The so-called “secret Grover meet-
ings” in Washington are emulated each week in 48 state capitals, in center-right coalition meetings held on the state level to discuss regional conservative issues. That may help explain why Republicans emerged from the 2010 midterms controlling 28 state legislatures, compared to just 15 fully controlled by Democrats. On a national level, virtually all
Republicans who oppose the pledge don’t have to worry about the politi- cal consequences. Former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming no longer holds elective offi ce. Rep. Frank Wolf of Northern Virginia, a Norquist antag- onist who has not signed the pledge, represents a district heavily popu- lated by federal workers who have a vested interest in big government. Some Republicans worry that the
pledge will make it diffi cult to resolve the nation’s entitlements crisis. Af- ter all, one budget deal, the so-called “grand bargain” between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, already fell victim to an im- passe over new taxes. No Labels co-founder Mark McK-
innon, who ran the advertising for former President George W. Bush’s campaigns, says the whole point of representative democracy is that “we actually want our elected repre- sentatives to think for themselves.” He adds: “Why tie their hands with pledges that can’t possibly anticipate the circumstances of the future? The only pledge anyone should take is the oath of offi ce. Beyond that, they should be leaders and not followers and say, I can think for myself and I will let my conscience be my guide.” Norquist thinks that misses the
whole point of the pledge. For hun- dreds of years, he says, politicians have been promising they won’t raise taxes. The diff erence with the ATR pledge, he says, is that voters believe Republicans who make that very public promise will keep it no matter what. Fellow conservative Heather
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