The Koch brothers don’t care if you care about their plans to buy 2016 election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/01/27/the-koch-brothers-dont-care-if-you-care-about-their-plan-to-buy-2016-election/

By Paul Waldman January 27, 2015

The Koch brothers are done being shy. That’s the conclusion one would have to draw from the fact that they just announced that they hope to spend $889 million ($889,000,000) on the 2016 election, an unprecedented amount of outside money. It won’t all be theirs — they’re assembling a kind of Plutocrat Politburo, a group of billionaires and zillionaires who will contribute to the cause — but with a combined worth of over $80 billion ($80,000,000,000), they’ll surely be the ones opening their ample wallets the widest and determining the strategy and the agenda.

But unlike some previous reporting on Charles and David’s political efforts, this revelation — which comes from a gathering in beautiful Rancho Mirage of Freedom Partners, the organization through which the Kochs and their allies will distribute all these millions — didn’t require any secret meetings with anonymous sources to unearth. They just told everyone. Here’s the Post’s story on it, here’s the New York Times’ story on it, and here’s Politico’s story on it, all complete with ample details and on-the-record quotes. Reporters may not have been invited into the private meetings at the gathering, but they were allowed to hang around and talk to the participants. And no fewer than four potential GOP presidential candidates (Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz) showed up as well, obviously unconcerned about any charge that they’re kowtowing to the uber-rich.

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In any case, the Kochs are probably right that they have little to lose by being public about their plans. Yes, they’ll have to absorb some stern editorials, and maybe even some ads from the DNC criticizing Republican politicians for associating with them. But weighed against what they have to gain by putting nearly a billion dollars into the next presidential campaign — more than the two parties spent, combined, in 2012 — that’s a price so small it’s barely worth worrying about.