"... the Kochs are seeking to remake public perceptions of their family, their business and their politics, unsettling a corporate culture deeply allergic to the spotlight." It isn't going to work on me!

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Koch Brothers Brave Spotlight to Try to Alter Their Image
By Nicholas Confessore, July 30, 2015

Once known for grim letters to fellow wealthy Americans warning of socialist apocalypse, Charles G. Koch now promotes research on the link between freedom and everyday happiness. Turn on “The Big Bang Theory” or “Morning Joe,” and you are likely to see soft-focus television spots introducing some of the many employees of Koch Industries.

Instead of trading insults with Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, Mr. Koch and his brother, David H. Koch, are trading compliments with President Obama, who this month praised the Kochs’ support for criminal justice reform at a meeting of the N.A.A.C.P.

After two elections in which Democrats and liberals sought to cast them as the secretive, benighted face of the Republican Party, the Kochs are seeking to remake public perceptions of their family, their business and their politics, unsettling a corporate culture deeply allergic to the spotlight. Even as their donor network prepares to spend extravagantly to defeat Democrats during the 2016 campaign, the Kochs have made cause with prominent liberals to change federal sentencing rules, which disproportionately affect African-Americans, while a Koch-backed nonprofit, the Libre Initiative, offers driving lessons and tax preparation services to Latinos.

This fall, Charles Koch will publish “Good Profit,” a new book about his management philosophy and worldview that seems intended to introduce the Kansas-born Mr. Koch as a kind of libertarian sage of Wichita. The makeover attempt has even included the Kochs’ twice-yearly “seminars” for donors to their political operation, events previously shrouded in such secrecy that Koch aides once erected large fans around an outdoor pavilion to foil long-distance recording devices. At this year’s summer seminar, which begins Saturday in Dana Point, Calif., invited reporters will be allowed to attend some sessions, including those featuring many of the Republican Party’s presidential candidates.

“In light of the barrage of political attacks and distortions of our record, beliefs, and vision, we are taking the steps necessary to get our story out to the public,” said James Davis, a spokesman for Freedom Partners, a nonprofit group that oversees the Kochs’ donor network.

Critics see an effort to soften the image of a political and philanthropic empire that has budgeted $889 million for the 2016 election cycle, including tens of millions to build a grass-roots activist network, and of a family business that is a major lobbying force in Washington and has faced numerous threats of a consumer boycott.

Democrats, in the meantime, are preparing to spend millions of their own to paint the Kochs’ political efforts as cynical and self-interested. (“The Koch Conspiracy to Cut Off Millions of Americans’ Access to Healthcare,” read the subject line on a report released Thursday by American Bridge, a liberal research group.) And three books are in the works about the Kochs, some likely to be critical.

“These outreach efforts disguise the men behind the curtain and their true Tea Party agenda, which hurts Latino families,” said Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign arm.

The brothers are sensitive to criticism that they are recent converts to issues like criminal justice. Mark Holden, the general counsel of Koch Industries, said the company had become active in defendants’ rights back in the 1990s, after four employees at a Texas refinery were snared in what the company viewed as an overzealous prosecution of federal clean air and hazardous waste laws. The company and family have long donated to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Mr. Holden said, as well as to the United Negro College Fund and other charities.

“Charles obviously is a classical liberal, who believes in the Bill of Rights, and limited but necessary government,” Mr. Holden said. “If those are your guideposts, criminal justice reform is where you need to be.”

But the two brothers, who have a combined fortune of about $100 billion, have also increased their giving in some areas. Last year, Koch Industries announced a $25 million gift to the college fund, much of it for a new Koch Scholars program in which the company will help shape the curriculum. The announcement prompted the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, another donor, to sever its relationship with the fund — a publicity coup, some argued, for the Kochs.

Michael L. Lomax, the president of the United Negro College Fund, said in an interview that any political dimension to the giving was not his concern.

“My focus is very narrow: Is this program working for our students?” said Dr. Lomax, adding, “I don’t really get very involved in the critics.”

Allies of the Kochs acknowledged that their approach has been shaped partly by the bruising experience of the 2012 and 2014 election cycles, when Democrats like Mr. Reid sought to make the Koch name a dirty word among voters.

Over the 2014 election cycle alone, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, Democrats and liberal groups aired more than 53,000 attack advertisements mentioning the Kochs. For all of the power of their political organization, the Kochs were ill equipped to respond to attacks on their name. A culture of discretion runs deep at Koch Industries, which does not have shareholders to respond to and which is eager to camouflage its business strategies from competitors. Relations with the news media could be fractious: If Koch Industries did not like an article, its public-relations team was in the habit of posting email exchanges it had with the reporter.

Last year, the Kochs and their aides saw an opportunity. Polls showed that most Americans had formed no opinion about the brothers, a vacuum begging to be filled. The company has since expanded its public-relations team, bringing in executives with experience defending politically beleaguered industries — one formerly worked for the private equity industry trade association — and an in-house pollster.

Last summer, Koch Industries started what has become a more than $20 million corporate branding campaign, “We Are Koch,” featuring not the two brothers but some of their 60,000 American employees. The ads, which the company has said were intended to aid in recruitment of new employees, were aimed in part at hostile territory: Some ran on episodes of “The Daily Show,” whose host, Jon Stewart, occasionally mocked the Kochs.

The public-relations push extends to the very private brothers themselves. In December, David Koch, who lives in New York, sat for an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC and described his liberal beliefs on gay rights and social issues. In April, Charles Koch, who for many years granted only the occasional interview to his hometown newspaper, The Wichita Eagle, answered questions from USA Today.

In recent months, Freedom Partners, the nonprofit that oversees the Kochs’ political donor network, has also persuaded some of its donors to put their names to op-ed articles in national and local newspapers, helping shift attention away from the two brothers. Because nonprofits do not disclose their donors, it is impossible to know how much of the Koch network’s spending is underwitten by the Kochs themselves. But several hundred like-minded donors are members of Freedom Partners and more than two dozen donors have signed the op-ed articles, which take up familiar Koch causes like abolishing the Export-Import Bank or cutting the size of the federal government.

“Charles Koch’s amazing. He gets death threats all the time, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Chris Rufer, a self-described libertarian and the founder of Morning Star, the world’s largest tomato processor. “They called and said, ‘Would you sign on to this?’ ”

Civil libertarians have also sought the company out as a partner. Mr. Holden has made several trips to the White House, striking up a partnership with Valerie Jarrett, one of Mr. Obama’s top advisers. “People are pulling us in because we can be helpful,” Mr. Holden said.
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