Grover Norquist, the Enforcer

A "campaign promise" is not exactly an oxymoron, but of all the pledges a person can make—wedding vow, blood oath, playground pinkie swear—it's the least dependable. Promises made with certainty a dozen times a day on the stump rarely survive their collision with the complications of actual governing. Ronald Reagan promised to slash the federal budget deficit. George W. Bush promised not to get involved in nation-building abroad. Barack Obama promised to close Guantanamo in his first year in office. They all sounded pretty good at the time.

Recent American politics has had one remarkable exception to the rule: the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Administered by the Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform and created by the organization's founder, Grover Norquist, the pledge binds its takers to oppose "any and all efforts" to increase marginal income tax rates and to protect tax deductions and credits. Two hundred thirty-three of the 240 House Republicans have signed it, as have 40 of the 47 Republican senators. Two House Democrats and one Senate Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, are signatories, as well as 1,252 state legislators who signed a less specific pledge. All of which would be meaningless without the omertà-like fidelity with which pledge takers stick to their vows once in office. Any time a proposal is floated to increase taxes in any way—not just income taxes or trimming tax credits, but capital-gains taxes and even excise taxes on gasoline or tobacco—it's a safe bet that Norquist's army will line up against it.