Opinion: Grover Puts Himself Before Party And Country
In the Presidential debates, Mitt Romney targeted Big Bird as a place to take the knife when cutting the federal budget. But it turns out that Grover, and not Big Bird, has the most to lose following the 2012 election.
Fear not children and parents, the Grover I speak of is not the lovable Super Grover 2.0 of Sesame Street.
Rather, the Grover I speak of is Grover Norquist who famously said that his goal was to shrink government so small that he could flush it down the toilet.
If you're looking for rhetorical flair, that's about the best you get from this Grover. Potty talk.
After the election, Grover told CBS News that Obama had won by calling Mitt Romney a "poopy-head".
But what can you expect from a guy that has been slinging bull around Washington for more than two decades?
Grover is the ultimate in single interest constituencies in Washington. He is not accountable to anybody. He does not disclose who funds him, who pays him to do what he does or how much he is paid to blackmail GOP Members of Congress to sign his pledge not to raise taxes.
His group "Americans for Tax Reform" forces Republican candidates to sign a pledge not to raise taxes and attacks anyone who dare try to raise revenues as part of cutting our deficit and paying down our debt.
When the U.S. Treasury was buying back debt in 2000, Grover Norquist had nothing to do with it. He and his group don't care about deficits or debt they only seek to line Grover's pockets by talking about tax cuts.
At long last Grover's days seem numbered. Speaker John Boehner referred to Grover as "some random person" in public.
If you really want to know why the GOP is in such bad shape it is because they cower and fear people like Grover Norquist for years instead of thinking for themselves. They did not have the guts to take him on and remind him that no one elected him to anything. He represents himself and his goal is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at relevance.
Yet Grover still considers himself some sort of leader and spokesperson for Republicans. He is filling a leaderless and gutless vacuum that exists in a party unwilling to adapt to the times.
Norquist is now claiming that Republicans will use the debt ceiling as leverage to stop any attempts to raise the highest tax rates. Norquist is advocating holding the U.S. economy hostage to stop something favored by some 60 percent of voters in November.
Hopefully, after causing unneeded damage to the U.S. economy once by threatening a first ever U.S. default, Republicans have learned that lesson.
It is a stupid idea from a lifelong proponent of one stupid idea.
Support for Grover in Washington has shrunk so small that he finds himself on the brink of being flushed down the toilet himself. It is an appropriate metaphor that Grover created for himself.
About Bill Buck
Bill Buck is a Democratic strategist, President of the Buck Communications Group, a media relations and new media strategies consulting business based in Washington, DC, and Managing Director of the online ad firm Influence DSP. He has over twenty years of international and national communications experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
