Grover Norquist and His Bathtub

It has become de rigueur for republican pundits to advise their brethren that the way to party salvation begins with a high-profile throwing under the bus of Grover Norquist:

The Republican Party needs a reality check

In the summer of 1999, George W. Bush chose the first major policy speech of his presidential campaign to pick a fight with Grover Norquist. Bush flatly rejected the “destructive” view “that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved” — a vision the Texas governor dismissed as having “no higher goal, no nobler purpose, than leave us alone.” 

Norquist had proposed to define conservatism as the “leave us alone” coalition — a movement united by a desire to get government off our backs. Bush countered that “the American government is not the enemy of the American people.”

Ed Crane, then the president of the libertarian Cato Institute, said the speech sounded as if it had been written by someone “moonlighting for Hillary Rodham Clinton.” I can formally deny that charge. But the Bush campaign was purposely attempting to alter the image of the Republican Party. And the party — rendered more open to change by eight years in the presidential wilderness — gave Bush the leeway to make necessary ideological adjustments.

The interesting thing about the Norquist "Club for Growth" is it straddles both the social wingnut and corporatist wings.  The nexus is "small government."

The wingnuts want it because they don't want "their tax dollars" going to help someone else.  They'd rather do without themselves if any help means "those people" would benefit.

The wall street crowd have a different end game in mind.  They want access to the Treasury, and in particular, the social security trust fund.  They've been salivating for decades over the fees they could wring out of that.

Both are on board for drowning the government in a bathtub, but for their own different reasons, however the wingnuts don't realize the extent that they will go down with the ship once government, if Norquist has his way, finds itself in Davey Jones locker.

Which is why these pundits advice to throw Norquist under the bus is a bunch of bs.  And they're fooling no one but themselves.