Grover Norquist responded to George Stephanopoulos' contention that Obama's November election victory should give the president leverage in the fiscal cliff negotiations on ABC this morning:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: This gets to an issue which others have brought up during the week. It is -- you're right, Congressman Ryan's plan passed the House but there has been an election and House Republicans are only one part of of Washington right now.
GROVER NORQUIST: And the president is only one part. The Republicans actually passed a budget that -- not a budget, not just a budget but a budget plan that goes out through the years, gives you entitlement reform and pro-growth tax reform and doesn't have to raise taxes, the left wants to raise taxes but you don't have to balance the budget and take the debt down. They have a plan. They've passed it and got re-elected having done that. The Senate got re-elected because they never voted on anything - it's the only way they were able to get re-elected. They haven't even put something forward and the president's plan was an outline that the House and Senate voted against. You can't argue you have a mandate when your own party voted against "your budget."