Grover Norquist is one of the most influential and brilliant minds of a new generation of conservative activists. Profiled everywhere from The New Yorker to Fortune to the Washington Post, he is president of Americans for Tax Reform, a coalition of taxpayer groups, individuals and businesses opposed to higher taxes at both the federal, state, and local levels. He also sits on the board of directors for organizations such as the National Rifle Association, the American Conservative Union, The Nixon Center, serves as a Contributing Editor to the American Spectator Magazine, serves as president of the American Society of Competitiveness, and is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. A popular speaker on the political circuit, Norquist is the author of Rock the Houseand the forthcoming Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives (William Morrow).
In talks based on Leave Us Alone Norquist describes a new Conservative movement that will shape the next century. The modern Republican Party is a coalition of groups created during the political life of Ronald Reagan, based on principle rather than region and history – one that will, Norquist argues – grow in power and size during the next generation. The new political movement that now controls much of the Republican Party is a movement of Americans who simply wish to be left alone by the government. They are not asking the government for others’ money, time, or attention. Among them are members of the NRA, homeschoolers, property owners and Christian evangelicals. Norquist not only spells out what the “Leave Us Alone Coalition” represents, but he also delves into the reasons why the conservative movement will grow and come to dominate politics for decades to come.
In the past, Norquist served as a commissioner on the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, a commissioner on the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service, economist and chief speech-writer, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (1983-1984), campaign staff on the 1988, 1992, 1996 Republican Platform Committees, executive director of the National Taxpayers’ Union, and executive director of the College Republicans.
Norquist holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics, both from Harvard University. A native of Massachusetts, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Samah.
Praise for Grover Norquist and Leave Us Alone:
“Grover Norquist is the person who I regard as the most innovative, creative, courageous and entrepreneurial leader of the anti-tax efforts and of conservative grassroots activism in America . . . He has truly made a difference and truly changed American history.”
—Newt Gingrich
“Grover Norquist is Tom Paine crossed with Lee Atwater plus just a soupcon of Madame Defarge.”
— P.J. O’Rourke
“Grover Norquist is provocative, intellectually fearless, and always worth paying attention to. His new book is Grover at his best which is very, very good. Read this important volume and you’ll understand why Norquist plays such a key role in American politics.”
—Karl Rove
“Leave Us Alone is a brilliant introduction to the coming revolution in American government by the most consistently effective anti-tax activist in America. The chapter on five great reforms is worth the entire book.”
—Newt Gingrich
“This is Grover Norquist’s mind at work – impassioned, data-driven, and unintimidated by the lay of the political land.”
—Peggy Noonan
“The big gun of economic conservatism”
—New York Observer
“Grover Norquist is unexcelled in political straight talk, and this book should be required reading for faint-hearted Republicans who cannot comprehend what the nature of their appeal to the public must be. For Americans who want their government to leave them alone, this is a clarion call in the political wilderness.”
—Robert Novak
“For two decades Grover Norquist has been a leader in forging a coalition of cultural and economic conservatives. Now, in the wake of the Republican defeat in 2006, he looks ahead in Leave Us Alone to the trends that he believes can work to unite conservatives in the years ahead so that the nation can move not ‘back to Europe’ but ‘ahead to America’.
—Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics and senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
“Grover Norquist has long been among the most penetrating and innovative political thinkers in Washington. Leave Us Alone now provides every American an opportunity to appreciate his ideas in a way previously reserved only for those fortunate enough to know Grover and hear them directly.”
—Bruce Bartlett
“The old dichotomies of left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative have increasingly little relevance for the politics of America. But Norquist’s formulation: the leave-us-aloners vs. the takers, is vital, relevant, and incisive. Viewed through this prism, politics makes sense.”
—Dick Morris
“Grover Norquist’s mordant analysis of the lugubrious Left as represented by the ‘Takings Coalition’ is sufficient reason for the enthusiastic purchase of this book by anyone with even a libertarian atom in his or her body.”
—Christopher Hitchens