kingmaker

No longer will he be the king, much less the kingmaker — and he cannot stand the idea of being irrelevant.

By the 2000s Dobson was a kingmaker in the GOP and was feted by every Republican politician who coveted his endorsement.

Or Cecil B. DeMille, the Hollywood kingmaker whose friendly exterior disguises his determination to preserve his industry’s institutional sexism?

Guralnick’s new book is the story of an immigrant scrapper who became a kingmaker with his unerring instinct for the main chance.

It’s also the fastest-growing, and it’s been a political kingmaker since the 1990s.