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Grover Norquist's sway over the GOP

Grover Norquist has something over nearly every Republican member of the U.S. Congress: they have promised they will not raise their constituents' taxes. His organization, Americans for Tax Reform, distributes and enforces the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," which Norquist created. He holds his signers to their promise by threatening to widely publicize any breach of that contract - the kiss of death in almost any election.

Many believe "The Pledge," as it's known around the Beltway, is the reason the bi-partisan "Supercommittee" has not agreed on a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the nation's massive deficit with a looming days-away deadline. Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes" report on a man one former senator tells Kroft may be the most powerful in America right now, will be broadcast Sunday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Norquist has headed up Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax lobbying and conservative activist organization, since 1985, waging a war on big government by trying to sap it of the taxes it needs to grow. In getting so many party members to sign his anti-tax pact, some GOP dissenters believe he has hijacked the Republican Party. He calls it brand building, giving the voter a clear message. "I vote for the Republican. He or she will not raise my taxes," he says. "You could...go into the voting booth dead drunk, vote for the "R" - he or she will not raise your taxes."

Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson from Wyoming says Norquist may be the most powerful man in America today - a dangerous prospect, he says. "He's [a] megalomaniac, egomaniac, whatever you want to call him...He ought to run for president, because that will be his platform, 'No new taxes even if your country goes to hell.'"

Simpson says he knows Republicans who now regret signing "The Pledge." "They come up to us and say, 'Save us from ourselves. I got trapped by this guy,'" he tells Kroft. One of them is Rep. Steve LaTourette, R -Ohio, who now disavows the pledge he signed 18 years ago. He says Norquist should let up in today's dire economic times. "To be bound by something based on circumstances that existed 18 years ago, when the circumstances are different. I think that's a little naïve," says LaTourette.

Norquist will not yield, even with the possibility of a stalemate in the Supercommittee mandating automatic, drastic cuts to government programs that could jeopardize the weak economic recovery. "If they sign it and keep it, they win the primary. They win the general. They get to govern," he tells Kroft, and, he says with a smile, "I've helped make all this possible."

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