"The spending projections from the Koch network ... is generating a combination of anger and determination ..."

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COMMENTS:
*  and that is precisely the point. One man one vote cannot exist where money is speech. The answer seems very evident remove the money and remove the inrquity. Ask yourself the question.....why would anyone spend 889 million on an election cycle.........and expect nothing in return.........
*  Actually, maybe there should be a standard deduction/tax credit for voting.... Vote in an election and take $100 off bottom line taxes, regardless of income and schedule A not required for deduction (short form includes it).
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Koch spending goal lit a flame, Dems say
By Tarini Parti, January 30, 2015

In the City of Brotherly Love, there was none for the Koch brothers among Democratic lawmakers huddled here for their retreat.

Just a few days after the Koch network’s wealthy GOP donors met in the California desert to discuss their plans to spend $889 million over the next two years, Democratic lawmakers received new polling data from White House adviser David Simas in a closed-door meeting Wednesday night that Democrats could use to form a more effective narrative against the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch and other Republican donors. The polling presentations come as Democrats grapple with creating a unified message for 2016 — a major criticism of their disastrous performance in the recent midterms.

“One of the top testing issues for the middle-class voters is their anger at the Tax Code for giving wealthy people like the Koch brothers loopholes and shelters,” said Rep. Steve Israel, the new chairman of the House Democrats’ messaging arm, in an interview with POLITICO, adding that the eye-popping Koch network spending number has given Democrats “a sense of resolve.”

“That issue polls very powerfully,” said Israel, who served as chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign committee in 2014. “It fits directly into our message that one party is trying to protect the middle class, and the other is spending whatever it must to dismantle the middle class. The more relentless [the Kochs] are, the more negative a brand we will make them.”

The spending projections from the Koch network has been a topic of discussion among members at the retreat, but rather than nervousness, “it is generating a combination of anger and determination,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), a leading advocate of campaign finance reform. “There’s no question that it’s a daunting scenario that looms before us. But on the other hand, it’s deeply offensive not just to the public, but to us when you’re serving the public this notion that you can buy democracy with million dollar checks in a backroom.”

Before Democrats worked on fine-tuning their messaging in Philadelphia, House and Senate Democratic leadership met earlier this week with officials from opposition research group American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, which last year launched a research-and-communications war room targeting the Koch brothers. The group is pushing members of Congress and other Democratic groups to centralize a message that connects the Kochs to specific issues.

American Bridge also this week invited Democratic groups, including unions, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood and the Center for American Progress, to a “briefing and planning meeting on Charles and David Koch’s expansive — and secretive — political network.”

“The Koch Brothers spent more than $290 million in 2014 to elect extreme, far right Republicans to the House and Senate,” reads the invitation to the event titled, “Buying an Election: A Meeting and Briefing on Strategy to Counter the Koch Brothers Political Network,” which was obtained by POLITICO. “They’ve already announced their plan to spend a staggering $889 million to buy the White House in 2016. These two shadowy billionaires are trying to buy our government so they can roll back environmental protections, undermine workers’ rights and cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires like themselves.”

“American Bridge has been compiling research and tracing the shadowy network the Kochs have built to promote policies that will make them richer and bankrupt the middle class as part of a Koch rapid response hub we launched last cycle,” it says. “We hope you’ll join us for a discussion of the latest developments in the Koch Brothers’ political network and our plans and yours to counter them over the next two years.”

The invitation for the event comes after David Brock, founder and chairman of the group, circulated a memo, “Dear Koch Brothers: We Aren’t Going Anywhere.” It explained why Democrats should continue to target the Kochs even though they lost big in 2014 in the races in which they used the brothers in their messaging.

Besides just messaging, Democrats are hoping the $889 million figure — part of which will be steered toward academic programs and policy research— will rally grass-roots donors via online fundraising and push major donors to open their checkbooks.

Rep. Ben Ray Luján, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, touted the Democrats’ online fundraising efforts, saying in an interview that Democrats are “going to have millions of small donors matching the Koch brothers in online fundraising” and “a more excited electorate” in 2016.

“The Koch brothers just lit a flame under millions of Democratic small donors and grass-roots activists, and there’s no doubt Democrats will use this now until Election Day,” said Anne Lewis, a top Democratic fundraiser. “Online donors are the great equalizer and right now Democrats simply have more of them.”

Outside groups also have jumped on the Koch networks’ spending plans to generate email fundraising pleas. In an email with the subject line, “Oh hell — Kochs pledge $889 million for 2016 fight,” Democratic-leaning environmental group, the League of Conservation Voters told supporters: “It’s the kind of big money that hovers ominously in the background as we engage in fights right now with Big Oil and the Koch brothers on critical environmental decisions facing this country.”

The Koch networks’ spending numbers could also help bring big donors back on board, after the targeting strategy failed in 2014.

Mel Heifetz, a major Democratic donor, said in an email the Koch network’s plans make him nervous, but give more of a reason for the party to target it than in the past. “I think it becomes more obvious with each mention of the amount that the Koch brothers are buying the next election,” he said.

Heifetz has given $1.2 million to Democratic campaigns and groups that disclose their contributions in the past two cycles.

But a spokesman for the Koch’s political operation said the Democrats’ new messaging efforts will not yield results any different from 2014.

“Democrats’ past attempts to divide America by demonizing job creators didn’t work too well,” said James Davis, spokesman for Freedom Partners. “Despite their rhetoric, over the last six years, their big government policies have expanded the gap between the rich and poor in our country and the middle class has carried most of the burden. So while they’re building another campaign on baseless personal attacks, we’ll stay focused on advancing policies that improve lives and increase prosperity for all Americans.”

Democratic leadership here didn’t criticize the Kochs at a news conference by name, unlike Sen. Harry Reid, who took to the Senate floor to bash the brothers often last year.

Instead, the top two House Democrats — Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer — repeatedly criticized the Republicans for working for the “high rollers” and the “well-connected,” stressing that making that connection to voters will be a priority for them. Later in an interview with POLITICO, Hoyer said “the Koch brothers are the clearest example of people with very great wealth and very great special interests” whom Democrats can use to help voters “make an informed judgment of who is for me and who is not.”

Pelosi also attributed the flood of money on the airwaves for “misrepresenting” the Democrats’ message and keeping voters at home in 2014. “The elections are more challenging because so much money comes in to suffocate the airwaves with misrepresentations and really just deters people from coming to the polls,” she told reporters.

“So part of our challenge in the last election was that only one-third of the electorate voted. The point is that we have to reach people so when they know the distinction they will vote accordingly.”
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