Grover Norquist: 'Field Marshal' of the Bush Plan (Page 3)

To a significant degree, George W. Bush owes his election to Norquist, whose early support was crucial in lining up the right behind the Texas governor's campaign. And if Bush, born in the Ivy League haunts of the Eastern Establishment but raised in the conservative oilfields of West Texas, has managed to forge a governing coalition that includes both Big Business and the far right, Norquist's skillful ability to hold that coalition together is a big reason why.

In November 1998, immediately after Bush was re-elected as Texas governor and began eyeing the White House, Norquist traveled to Austin to meet Bush and Karl Rove, Bush's political guru, whom Norquist has known for two decades. Norquist came away convinced that Bush, if not an authentic conservative, was at least the right's best hope. On five issues, he says--tax cuts, school choice, tort reform, pension reform and paycheck protection--Bush said the right things, and that was enough for Norquist. At the time, for most conservatives Bush was an unknown quantity, and his closeness to his father (whom Norquist excoriated in his book for faithlessness and errors of political judgment) made the right queasy. Others in the race, like Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer, all had appeal to the far right--but Norquist, upon returning to Washington, started spreading the word that the right ought to line up behind Bush.

According to several sources, Norquist's support was decisive in swinging the bulk of the conservative movement into Bush's camp by early 1999. "It's not disputable," says Fund of the Wall Street Journal. Then, when Bush ran into trouble battling Senator John McCain of Arizona, Norquist mobilized the right against McCain in the early primaries, especially in South Carolina--and, in the process, cemented his ties to Bush and Rove.

When pressed, Norquist admits that he has no idea whether Bush is truly committed or just playing politics--and that, in the end, it doesn't matter. "Is Bush, or Rove for that matter, a true believer?" he asks. "I don't know. I do believe he understands the center-right coalition." For now, at least, Norquist believes that Bush is wedded to the idea that it would be fatal, as his father learned, to alienate the hard-core conservative base. Like the Communists of the late 1930s, who slavishly praised Franklin Roosevelt even though they knew he was a card-carrying member of the New York financial elite, Norquist seems to acknowledge with a wink that Bush is a vehicle to advance the conservative cause one more degree.

"It's like this," he says. "Some of us in the movement want to get to St. Louis, and some of us to Utah, and some to Los Angeles, and some of us want to go all the way to Japan. Bush wants to get to St. Louis. Is there any reason to argue with him about the need to get to LA? Or to get really flaky and say we need to go all the way to Japan? Of course not."

Right now, "getting to St. Louis" means passing the tax cut--shaping up as the make-or-break event for Bush's presidency--intact, and Norquist is playing a critical role in insuring that business groups, antitax activists and a wide range of single-issue conservative organizations stay focused. "I would call him our field marshal," says Horace Cooper, who is counsel and director of coalitions for majority leader Dick Armey.

To add pressure on Congressional Democrats to endorse the tax package, Norquist is coordinating a campaign to get state legislatures to pass resolutions of support, concentrating on the nineteen states where Republicans control both houses. "There are fifteen Democratic senators and fifty-six Democrats in the House from those states," he says.

Norquist has also organized seventeen conservative groups under the umbrella of the American Conservative Union to support Bush's plan, even though most of them, including ATR and ACU, would prefer even more sweeping tax cuts. Here Norquist is at his best, wrangling and cajoling. One example: He worked hard to keep the Christian right groups together in support of reducing the "marriage penalty," eventually winning a major victory when the House passed the $400 billion tax cut provision on March 29, even though some groups wanted more. Norquist also helped soothe business lobbyists, for whom an expanded marriage-penalty reduction cuts into the money available for corporate tax cuts.

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