Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade [Hardcover]

Nina J. Easton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2000

In "Gang of Five," bestselling author Nina J. Easton adds an important element to the history of American politics in the last thirty years. This is the story of the other, less well known segment of the baby-boom generation. These are young conservative activists who arrived on campus in the 1970s in rebellion against everything "sixties" and went on to overturn the political dynamics of the country in the 1980s and 1990s. They've been waging what Newt Gingrich called a "war without blood" for three decades. "Gang of Five" portrays the intertwining careers of five major figures:

BILL KRISTOL, the Harvard-educated elitist and publisher of the "Weekly Standard," is the liberal establishment's worst nightmare -- a witty, erudite Rightist who was a leading force behind the demise of the Clinton health care plan, the historic reform of welfare, and the decision of House Republicans to impeach the president.

RALPH REED, the hardball politico who helped turn an organization called the College Republicans into a kind of communist cell of the Right, in the 1990s tried to give the Religious Right a softer face as leader of the Christian Coalition but was thwarted by his thirst for power and the narrow fundamentalism of his activist followers.

CLINT BOLICK, a leading force in the spread of school choice programs and the anti-affirmative action strategist who sank Lani Guinier's appointment, is the idealist who seeks to convince civil rights leaders that his legal work on behalf of disadvantaged minorities is sincere and that liberal programs hurt the people they are meant to help.

GROVER NORQUIST, the "market Leninist" who divides the world into "good" and"evil," is at the hub of Hillary Clinton's "vast right-wing conspiracy" and is the architect of a no-new-taxes pledge signed by all major Republican candidates in the 1990s.

DAVID MCINTOSH, the policy wonk who took the movement's war on Washington to Congress as leader of the House Republican freshmen during the Gingrich Revolution, pushed his party toward confrontation with the White House and is now running for governor in Indiana.

In contrast to earlier generations of conservatives, these leaders and their allies tasted success, first with Ronald Reagan's twin victories in the 1980s and then, in the 1990s, with the Republican capture of Congress. They play to win and have had a hand in every major insurrection from the Right over the past two decades -- from abortion politics to government shutdowns to political muckracking. No politician can ignore their agenda or escape the new hardball rules they've written for national politics.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"There is a hidden history in American politics, the other side of the baby-boom generation: political rebels of the Right who emerged on campus in the 1970s and went to overturn the established liberal order," writes Nina J. Easton in Gang of Five. "To understand them is to understand what politics has become and what it will be." Her book is probably best described as a quintuple biography of five movement conservatives in the midst of their political careers: Clint Bolick, a civil rights lawyer; William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard magazine; David McIntosh, a GOP congressman running for governor of Indiana in the fall of 2000; Grover Norquist, an antitax activist and one of Washington, D.C.'s most prominent right-wingers; and Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition maestro. "To understand these five men is to understand the real conservative movement," writes Easton.

That may be a slight overstatement, but only a slight one--this excellent book is one of the best narrative accounts of the modern conservative movement as it has developed since the 1970s. It's certainly the most readable. Easton's character-driven style brings each of her subjects alive; she treats them as real people with hopes and ambitions, not just mouthpieces for particular policies. Readers will learn of how Kristol grew up in the first family of neoconservatism, the bizarre way Norquist's father found his wife, and the charges of plagiarism leveled against Reed when he was an undergraduate. But Gang of Five isn't just gossip; it gracefully conveys the ideas that energize the conservative movement. Easton's discussion of Leo Strauss, delivered in a section on Kristol's days as a young man at Harvard, makes a difficult subject remarkably comprehensible. Best of all, this is no vast-right-wing-conspiracy tome. Easton reveals the important differences among these figures on everything from attitudes toward religion to personal style, and she reports on their sometimes vicious infighting (especially between Kristol and Norquist).

This is very much a book of the moment--each of these five men has long years ahead of him, and Easton could probably spend the rest of her life updating new editions of Gang of Five with fresh information. But there's also a sense of completeness here. She's done a remarkable job with an important subject, and made a compelling and original contribution to our understanding of contemporary politics. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

Already a capable chronicler of conservatism, Easton (co-author with Ronald Brownstein of Reagan's Ruling Class) returns to the history of the Right with a cautionary political tale in the form of intersecting biographies of five "third generation" conservative leaders. Her subjectsAWeekly Standard publisher Bill Kristol, Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, antitax lobbyist Grover Norquist, Congressman David McIntosh and constitutional lawyer Clint BolickAall came of political age on the college campuses of the early to mid-1970s, when the Left was strong and the Right irrelevant. But the combative nature of this "gang," Easton argues, soon changed the landscape of American politics. Appropriating both the irreverence and confidence of their leftist antagonists, these five individuals made conservative politics not only interesting but also almost hip. Their view of politics as a Manichean duel in which there could be no compromise soon came to define conservative politics. Easton traces the public careers of her subjects from the Right's halcyon days in the Reagan era to the present; she also notes how many AmericansAincluding Clinton, who, in 1996, said "The era of big government is over"Acame to embrace many of their anti-statist, free-market ideas. But the public didn't embrace the gang itself, Easton contends, because its members were too arrogant, too vitriolic in their rhetoric; they had passion but seemed to lack compassion. Easton wonders, in the end, if her subjects truly want to lead or merely fight. Neither an impassioned defense nor a rabid attack, this book delivers a thoughtful account of a crucial aspect of recent American politics. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (August 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684838990
• ISBN-13: 978-0684838991
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read to understand politics today, September 20, 2000

By 

Mark Stein (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade (Hardcover)

This is a thoughtful, well-researched look at some key figures in the significant shift toward conservatism experienced in the U.S. over the last two decades. The subjects are treated seriously and fairly, whether their strengths or weaknesses are being analyzed. The dramatic shift in the political spectrum since the 1970s is a fascinating phenomenon (I suspect that Nixon -- advocate of price controls and openness with China -- would today be considered too liberal to be a viable candidate for either party) and this book helped me to better understand how it came about.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must read for aspiring activists and revolutionaries!, January 12, 2001

By 

Auren Hoffman (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade (Hardcover)

I could not put this book down! This book was very thoughtful, extremely well written, and told a very interesting story. The book details the lives of five conservative activists (Bill Kristol, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, Grover Norquist, and David McIntosh) who shaped conservative thought and activism in the 1980s and 1990s. Though I disagree with the positions of many of these conservative activists, their lives are fascinating. Some are true romantics and others are completely Machiavellian. All in all -- a great book for anyone who considers themselves (or aspires to be) an activist, a revolutionary, or someone that has a fire to make change.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a great book!, October 20, 2000

By 

Stuart M. Wilder (Doylestown, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade (Hardcover)

Nina Easton's account of these five horsemen of the apocalypse is simultaneously snappy, wry, nuanced and fair. The five men she writes about are representative of the acolytes of the Reagan years, who yearn for a return to those Arcadian years, or at least to a presidential administration which would allow them to continue the Reagan's administration's mission of dismantling the federal government's role in its citizen's lives.

The account is snappy because it is fast paced and intelligent; Easton can write about wonks and eggheads and their beliefs without entangling the reader in wonkhood. Its wryness comes from Easton's wonderful ability to craft, or quote, the right phrase to convey an idea which in less gifted hands would be clumsily portrayed in a paragraph or page. The differences between and personal strengths of the five portrayed in the book are nuanced, demonstrating that they are not totally unsympathetic, and have some personal experience to ground their beliefs. Finally, though Easton's sympathies clearly do not lie with these knights of the right, her account demonstrates that they (yes, even Ralph Reed) have some sincerely held and reality based principles which point them at the windmills they charge.

It is a shame this book did not come out earlier this year, and was not better promoted, so that more people could soak it up before the election. I bought it only because by chance I saw Easton's interview on Booknotes a few weeks ago. Easton's book is another refreshing alternative to the instant analysis and high cholesterol punditry (is there any other kind) ladled out oversized portions. In an age when a candidate's ability to charm a daytime TV host outweigh ability or desire to understand the fundamental issues facing our government today, Easton's book is a reminder that a candidate propelled to the White House has a lot of hot exhaust behind him. We should know what we are going to have to breath before we vote.