Grover Norquist Quotes
We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals, and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship.
Bai, Matt. "The Multilevel Marketing of the President." The New York Times Magazine, 25 Apr. 2004.
The Republicans had been badly beaten in the 2012 Presidential Election. Many attributed the loss to the dissatisfaction of the electorate with the Republican ideas which had become more and more conservative in recent decades. Others, like Rubio, wanted to maintain the existing ideas which were very different from the Republican ideas earlier when they won more elections.
He was the chairman of the committee and the he had denied the Democrats equal access to witnesses before the meeting in a patently unfair process. When one of the minority members of the committee complained in the open hearing that the process was unfair this was his response. Most majority committee chairmen do not resort to this kind of unfair practice so this was not generally a typical practice but reflected the bitter hyperpartisanship that the House Republicans were engaging in at the time.
Neither side wants an appointee who is strong enough to move against their ideology. So with each party having the Senate filibuster, since they cannot get a strong leader advocating for their ideology, they will settle for a professionally competent, weak leader in the middle of the road who not be able to overcome their power.
He was referring to his Presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton. What makes this quotation noteworthy is that many observers at the time felt that this statement gave an insight into the very unusual personality of Trump. He was so hyper competitive and machismo that he even tried to be better than his opponent in everything including negative things like being nasty. He could not abide being second in anything, even things that made him less fit for the presidency.
The Republican Party at the time was in the midst of a takover by Donald Trump, the nativists and teh Tea Party. Their world view and their view of the proper role the U. S. in teh word, was almost diametically opposite to that of the Republican Party of the previous 120 years and still held by many of the elected Republican Office holders where only a few would express their real view for fear of a primary election challange from the right or losing the support of the Trump voters which might lead to their defeat by Democrats.
Grover Glenn Norquist is an American political activist and tax reduction advocate who is founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes all tax increases. A Republican, he is the primary promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a pledge signed by lawmakers who agree to oppose increases in marginal income tax rates for individuals and businesses, as well as net reductions or eliminations of deductions and credits without a matching reduced tax rate. Prior to the November 2012 election, the pledge was signed by 95% of all Republican members of Congress and all but one of the candidates running for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
