Somewhat like jailed and disgraced Jack Abramoff, he's really just a lobbyist. He has immense power because he is a very shrewd fellow. I don't believe he has ever held an elected office in his entire life. But because he has the support of various, very well funded, far right groups, like the Club for Growth, his Americans for Tax Reform group has built truly enormous power within the Beltway over the past 20 years or so. And he's become quite wealthy... even though he is not a job cree-ator.
Another odd thing about Norquist is that, even though he runs with the nuttiest of the wingnuts, he is rumored to be a homosexual. Now Grover is a (faux) fiscal conservative. But the GOP and the TEA party is really being pushed to the right by social conservatives... to the point that many/most so called fiscal conservatives (like the TEA Party Express) are really just groups that place most of their focus on pushing a right wing social agenda (you see it quite often on this very board), which includes an extreme dislike of homosexuality. So there's ol' Gay Grover (and Sweet Marcus Bachmann) having to hide who/what he is in order to be a champion of conservative causes. Doesn't matter to me what he is or isn't in his personal life. It just seems really odd... kind of like a Jew who supports the Aryan Brotherhood, a Black who supports the Klan or a woman who supports Sharia law.
The only way these Republicans in the Senate and House can defeat Grover, the Club for Growth and the Teabaggers is if they revolt en masse, so that not all of them can be "primaried" in 2014-2018. I hope that they are successful. It takes guts for them to do what several of them are now doing. It really does. My hat goes off to them. But if they are not successful, the GOP will be the big loser. If these guys are successfully primaried by Grover and the Teabaggers, then extremist wingnuts will be offered up and IMO will (again) be easily beaten by Democrats, once they open their ignorant mouths in a debate. These people are killing the GOP. I'm not a Democrat (or a Republican), so I hate to see that happen. I think there needs to be at least two major parties. But we're heading toward having just one if the Republicans continue on their death march to extinction.
