“While they don’t wear Koch Industries’ ties and jackets, they display their sponsors proudly through their actions here in the United States Senate.”

...................................................................................................................................................................
Harry Reid: GOP should wear Koch insignia
By Burgess Everett, April 7, 2014

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that Republicans might as well wear the insignias of the billionaire Koch brothers on their suits, likening the connection between the Kochs and the GOP to corporate sponsors and NASCAR drivers.

“NASCAR fans can easily find their favorite drivers by simply looking at the cars as they fly by, because there are corporate emblems on the hood of the car … for our clothing here in the Senate, we don’t bear commercials logos. Many Republicans might as well wear Koch insignias,” Reid said Monday. “While they don’t wear Koch Industries’ ties and jackets, they display their sponsors proudly through their actions here in the United States Senate.”

Reid’s Twitter account then tweeted a graphic of what a Koch-sponsored suit might look like.
The Nevada Democrat was seizing on Senate Republicans’ defense of Charles and David Koch, particularly the reading of a Charles Koch op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) last week on the Senate floor. In that piece, Charles Koch referred to his critics as “collectivists” and rebutted Reid’s repeated assertions that the Kochs are trying to “buy the country” through their political activities.

“Collectivists … is that a new right-wing buzzword for communist?” asked Reid, who by now could say little that would surprise the Kochs. The majority leader has been a months-long crusade against the Koch brothers and the affiliated Americans for Properity group, recently describing the Kochs as “un-American” and “radical.”

It’s all part of a Democratic strategy to portray Republicans as being on the side of the wealthy rather than the middle-class, though Republicans are quick to note that billionaires like Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg have supported Democrats’ defense of their Senate majority this year.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) maintains that the tactic is working, and both he and Reid said on Monday that Democrats plan to keep up the Koch-bashing.

“The Koch brothers’ agenda is an agenda that is not my agenda. It is not our agenda. But is it your agenda, I say to my Republican friends?” Reid said Monday. “We Democrats, we’ll continue to defend American families from the oil baron bullies who want nothing more than to enrich themselves. We will continue to oppose their efforts to buy our democracy.”
...................................................................................................................................................................