Today’s bloggers briefing was right down the hall from DAG's new offices at ATR. David already blogged about some of Grover Norquist's remarks, but I'm going to add some more fodder to the blogosphere, because Grover talked at length about his new book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives, and what he had to say was top-notch.

In his book Grover describes two coalitions that formed during the Reagan years, the Leave Us Alone Coalition and the Takings Coalition. The Leave Us Alone Coalition, as it’s aptly named, basically wants the government to stay out of their affairs, whether it’s gun owners who want to be free to hunt, business owners to earn a profit, or home schoolers who want to educate their children – the coalition is united by the common desire to keep the government out of their lives.

Each one says of the others ‘that’s not how I’m going spend my time’ but they tolerate other parts of the coalition because they're united in a common goal.

The Takings Coalition on the other hand is the heart of the tax-and-spend left and is made up of those who, on their primary vote moving issue, want the government to take something from one group and give it to another. Their coalition is made up of trial lawyers, labor-union leaders, government employee’s unions, recipients of government grants, those locked into welfare, and those who earn a living making sure welfare recipients never leave welfare.

The Takings Coalition has more rules then Leviticus and theirs are slightly more tedious.

The other team is evil, not stupid.

There isn’t one policy idea among the Democrat presidential candidates that will make your 401k bigger.

Some highlights from Grover's remarks:

*What’s Your Top Issue

We need to always keep in mind the difference between intensity and preference.

A lot of times people say they care about an issue, but what’s important is whether or not the issue moves their vote.

*Stockholders

The biggest demographic shift of the past twenty years has not been in Spanish speaking immigrants, it’s been of stockholders. Currently, 60% of adults and 2/3 of voters own stock.

Every tax on business is understood by voters as the government reaching into their own pockets.

*Gun Rights

Concealed carried permit-owners are much more dedicated to second amendment rights then hunters.

Except for two weeks out of the year, hunters might as well not be gun owners.

*Branding the GOP
95% of GOP lawmakers at the federal level have signed the taxpayer protect pledge.

At the federal level we spent a lot of time branding the GOP as the party of tax cuts.

Republicans who vote for tax increases are rat heads in a coke bottle. They hurt all Republicans, because they harm the GOP brand.

After listening to Grover, I dug into his book and found this interesting quote from the intro,

I also worked hard to avoid writing a book that could be summarized as a “longer version of a good magazine article.”

This strikes a real cord with me because I’ve read quite a few books on politics that left me with that exact thought – “good point, but this doesn’t need to be a 200 page book.” After listening to Grover talk non-stop for an hour, while keeping everyone in the room completely enthralled, and skimming the book for this post, I'm confident this book will have plenty of heft to it.

I’ve also been thinking long and hard lately about the future of the GOP, conservatism, and American politics in general (big thoughts, I know). After listening to a talk last week about how the millennial generation (which I’m a part of) is primed to vote Democrat, I’ve been feeling a bit dejected about the future of conservatism. That coupled with the fact that I've been searching for a good paradigm to describe where the American political system is heading, means that I'm looking forward to reading Grover’s book; I think it may have some of the answers I've been searching for.