Who is Grover Norquist?

Who is Grover Norquist?  I'd never heard his name mentioned before, until recently when MSNBC started holding him up as some sort of boogeyman. Former Senator Alan Simpson guested on Lawrence O'Donnell's craptastic program and said Norquist is more powerful than the President of the United States, adding:

“Grover Norquist should be examined into– where does he get his money? Peel all the layers of the onion... Anytime anyone gets this powerful.. you want to dig in… who is he slave to?”

First of all, it's kind of funny to see the same dolts who called Glenn Beck a crazy conspiracy theorist for covering George Soros now trying to invent their very own right wing version of Soros. And honestly, I think Soros would be insulted. Soros and his billions in donations and influence on Progressive causes is well documented - and clearly having an impact. What about Grover? After a few minutes on Google I learned that Norquist's claim to fame is creating the group Americans for Tax Reform in 1985. Their primary policy goal: to reduce the percentage of the GDP consumed by the federal government.

How has this man, more powerful than the President, succeeded in advancing his evil plot to reduce the size of government? He's had a quarter century to work on that:

According to the AFP today: "U.S. Debt Reaches 100 Percent of Country's GDP"

Yeah. Not so spooky, is he.

H/T Mediaite