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Sunday, Dec 2, 2012 10:14 PM UTC

Claire McCaskill: Who is Grover Norquist?

The anti-tax bogeyman is a nobody to the Missouri senator. Norquist, meanwhile, suggests Obama is a big baby

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Topics: Grover Norquist, Claire McCaskill, meet the press, Fiscal cliff,

Claire McCaskill: Who is Grover Norquist?Grover Norquist (Credit: AP/Cliff Owen)

Sen. Claire McCaskill posed a pretty good question on “Meet the Press” this morning: Grover who?

“I met him for the first time this morning,” McCaskill said of the Americans for Tax Reform leader. “Nice to meet him. But, you know, who is he?”

People like Norquist, McCaskill concluded, almost make her feel sorry for John Boehner. “There is incredible pressure on him from a base of his party that is unreasonable about this. And he’s got to decide: Is his speakership more important, or is the country more important?”

Norquist, meanwhile, compared the president to a big baby. “It’s the president who’s threatening to raise taxes on the middle class if he doesn’t stamp his feet and get his way,” he said.

The solution: C-SPAN!

“He should get into a room with C-SPAN cameras there and negotiate, so instead of hearing rhetoric like this — that was all show, no economics. Let’s have it in front of C-SPAN cameras,” Norquist said. “And if the Republicans are being reasonable, we’ll see that. If they’re not, we’ll see that. You’ve got to have cameras in that room; none of this press releases after.”

 

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David Daley is the executive editor of Salon. More David Daley.

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