{"id":13281,"date":"2011-03-18T20:28:57","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T20:28:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-03-18T20:28:57","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T20:28:57","slug":"de-facto-ca-gop-leader-grover-norquist-needs-a-new-de-facto-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2011\/03\/18\/de-facto-ca-gop-leader-grover-norquist-needs-a-new-de-facto-job\/","title":{"rendered":"De Facto CA GOP Leader Grover Norquist Needs a New De Facto Job"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. insider and anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist was recently quoted by conservative columnist Debra Saunders in the SF Chronicle as saying &#8220;I think golf and cocaine would be more constructive ways to spend one&#8217;s free time than negotiating with Democrats on spending restraint.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I have always considered golf a good walk spoiled. &nbsp;As a recovering cocaine addict, I am surprised that anyone would think that it is at all constructive to spend one&#8217;s free time using that drug.<\/p>\n<p>One would think that Mr. Norquist made this comment with a straw in his hand bending over a mirror full of white powder.<\/p>\n<p>This is the man the California Republican Party is taking its cues from when it comes to tackling our state&#8217;s budget crisis.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s no wonder California Republicans find themselves out of touch not only with California voters on the whole, but even with an increasingly smaller percentage of Californians who self-identify as Republican voters.<\/p>\n<p>A recent Field Poll showed that 61% of California voters were in favor of holding a special election to vote on a package of spending cuts and temporary tax increases to balance our budget. Even 56% of California Republicans are in favor of the idea.<\/p>\n<p>Instead Republican leaders in Sacramento are taking their lead from their de facto leader in Washington, D.C., Grover Norquist. This isn&#8217;t good for Californians, it isn&#8217;t good for our budget process and it isn&#8217;t even good for the Republican Party.<\/p>\n<p>Californians must be trusted to exercise their right to vote &#8211; that&#8217;s how things work in a democracy. What remains of the sensible part of the Republican Party needs to speak loudly against out of touch, and out-to-lunch Republicans like Grover Norquist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. insider and anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist was recently quoted by conservative columnist Debra Saunders in the SF Chronicle as saying &#8220;I think golf and cocaine would be more constructive ways to spend one&#8217;s free time than negotiating with Democrats on spending restraint.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I have always considered golf a good walk spoiled. &nbsp;As a recovering cocaine addict, I am surprised that anyone would think that it is at all constructive to spend one&#8217;s free time using that drug.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[117],"tags":[8704,9731,75,921],"class_list":["post-13281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-117","tag-8704","tag-9731","tag-75","tag-921"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-3sd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}