Last Friday, I attended (on behalf of
PoliticsTV) the most recent
American Prospect breakfast, and this month's guest was none other than longtime conservative activist Grover Norquist.
The transcript of the breakfast will be available soon on the American Prospect's website, but after taking some much needed R & R this weekend, I wanted to share a couple of my initial thoughts from meeting Norquist and some of the insights I gained from him about the conservative movement/machine (as he's a pretty big player in said movement).
Thoughts below the flip.
The breakfast started at 8am, and about 18 folks were in the room when Grover arrived with his chief-of-staff, Chris Butler. Chris passed out a selection of materials and then Grover started off the breakfast before opening up to questions from the group.
Grover runs an off-the-record weekly meeting of approx. 100 to 150 key [conservative] movement leaders called the "Wednesday Group", which meets at Grover's office in downtown DC. Grover shared a bit of detail about how the group works. They meet for an hour or two, and usually about 30 folks share a position he/she has on a particular issue, and then they move on to the next person. Grover characterized the meetings as place where conservative figures make arguments for their causes/issues, some of which are often at odds with each other.
In his words, the conservative movement is bound by a "leave us alone" coalition. I don't want to misquote stuff from the breakfast, but between a number of his answers, Grover came off as being somewhat of a social liberal/libertarian, commenting several times at how misguided some of his fellow conservatives are in thinking that talking about banning gay marriage actually moved votes and were the cause of GOP victories in past elections. Grover mentioned in one of his answers that he'd worked with the Human Rights Campaign (big gay lobby in DC) on tax issues, which was a surprise to me.
One key concept Grover stressed over and over again was defining "vote-moving issues" from "other issues". Basically, vote-moving issues matter, and other issues don't, from a pragmatic electorial strategy perspective. How could this advise translate to Democrats and progressives? Understand what issues actually make someone change a vote, and which issues don't, and don't waste time with issues that don't move votes.
One quote I did write down was as follows: "We [conservatives] view voting fraud as a growing part of the Democratic coalition." I saw a number of the faces in the room give a "you have to be f'ing kidding me" look, but figured I'd pass along the quote for others to unpack. It is possible he was being facetious --- he did crack a number of jokes at the expensive of liberals and conservatives alike while he was speaking.
When Grover was asked (and I'm paraphrasing here) whether Americans for Tax Reform "was for sale" (referring to Grover and his organization's involvement in the whole Abramoff business), he went on the defensive and (as I expected) he said no.
His primary defense was that his organization makes clear their mission (cutting taxes) and if what activities his group undertook benefits those who donate to Americans for Tax Reform (a 501(c)3 non-profit under IRS regs), that was the group advocating their clearly defined mission. Our breakfast was this past Friday, and Grover and his organization are mentioned prominently in today's Washington Post (article here). In today's Post article, it seems the "we share the same goals in the first place" defense is the one that Grover and his group are sticking with ["In a recent interview at The Washington Post, Norquist said that Americans for Tax Reform and Abramoff's gambling clients worked together because they shared anti-tax, anti-regulatory views."].
On a final note, while Grover and I are probably have nothing in common politically --- he came off as a nice fellow (although I imagine that if you're going to be one of the key figures in a large socio-political movement, it's helpful to not be an asshole).
Anyway, that's all for now. I'll post a more detailed write-up from the breakfast when the transcript becomes publically available and I'll be happy to answer questions in comment thread.