Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendancy

By Nina J. Easton

Book Overview

In Gang of Five, bestselling author Nina J. Easton reveals the hidden history of American politics in the last thirty years. It's the story of the other, less well-known segment of the baby-boom generation: young conservative activists who arrived on campus in the 1970s in rebellion against everything "sixties" and went on to overturn the political dynamics of our country. Gang of Five focuses on the lives and careers of five major figures.
BILL KRISTOL, the Harvard-educated intellectual and Weekly Standard publisher
RALPH REED, the hardball politico and strategist for the Christian right
CLINT BOLICK, the constitutional lawyer and "bleeding heart" libertarian
GROVER NORQUIST, the anti-tax activist and leader of the so-called vast right-wing conspiracy
DAVID McINTOSH, the fresh-faced congressman and architect of the Right's war on regulation
Gang of Five is a major contribution to contemporary history that explains how we arrived at the politics of today.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743203208
• ISBN13: 9780743203203
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Behind-the-Scenes Look

"Gang of Five" is an excellent, behind-the-scenes look at five individuals who played a large part in shaping the Republican power structure as we know it today. Although the book was written nearly six years ago, Easton's insightful journalism is especially relevant due to the Jack Abramoff scandal. Abramoff plays a large part in the book, as he ran the College Republicans with pals Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. To understand the Republican Party, you must read this book. Easton's knowledge spans the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years, and goes beyond the personalities you see in the media to paint a picture of a party rooted in college activism, philosophy, and a desire to push the country to the Right. This book comes highly recommend to anyone interested in our political strucutre, Republican or Democrat.

Learn about the internal makeup of the conservative movement

Being a Leftist, I didn't know much about how the conservative movement actually works. After reading this book, I think I understand it a little better. I had always known that the Republican Party is fractured, with religious conservatives and economic libertarians forming a coalition of people who have little in common with one another. This book showed me that there are even more divisions than that.It also showed me how the conservative movement has changed. In this profile of five relatively young conservative leaders, you won't find any mention of Jesse Helms as a role model. The Republican Party is trying to smooth the edges a little bit. Of the five leaders whose lives are profiled (Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, David McIntosh, and Bill Kristol), I found Ralph Reed's to be the most interesting. I really didn't know how moderate he is. After his almost comical exploits as a young man trying to rig elections, his maturity and conversion come off as being genuine if incomplete. I loved the parts of the book where Ralph Reed tries to moderate the conservative christian message and is undercut by his own followers, who are much more interested in being anti-abortion crusaders than in crafting a complex social policy. When he missteps, it is usually by presuming to speak for them in ways for which they would not approve.Grover Norquist comes off as a Darth Vader-like character, a man almost completely blinded by his ideology. Reading about his torpedoing of a potential Colin Powell run for the presidency and about his thinly disguised sympathy for separatist militia groups, one is reminded of the ugly face of conservatism that earned it the traditional brand "mean-spirited". But one also realizes that people like Bill Kristol disapprove of that sort of thing vociferously, and still call themselves conservatives. Norquist operates under the supposition that 60% of the people of the country are Rightists, and that Democrats only win by cheating, but it seems that not even 60% of Republicans would meet his definition of a Rightist. This book chronicles the intellectual development, the rise to power, the internal conflicts, the illusions and delusions, the lessons learned through hard experience, and the ultimate disappoinment of the Right's leaders before, during, and after the Republican Revolution of 1994. As a liberal reader, I recommend it as a great primer. I don't know what a conservative reader would think of it.