Charles and David Koch have a problem - a real problem. They announced in January of this year that they had nearly $900 million to spend on the 2016 Presidential election and they just can’t find anyone to spend it on. Any Republican that is. Jay H. Ell feels their pain as in spite of all those candidates he would be at loss as to where he might spend $900 let alone the millions. Charles Koch in an interview with MSNBC”s Morning Joe Scarborough that brought tears to one’s eyes, bemoaned the fact that with all the money he has spent thus far in American Presidential politics he has achieved very little positive. Jay H. Ell would agree with him on that. But Koch’s frustration is mounting with an awareness that he can’t take it with him and he is now in his eighties and in 2020 he will be closing in on the nineties.
THE KOCHS ARE THE GODFATHERS THAT WRECKED THE OLD GOP
The Kochs can look back at nearly fifty years of trying to influence the American world with hundreds of million of dollars. In Charles’s therapeutic “pour it all out” session with Morning Joe he lamented the fact that he had made very little impact in the political world but Jay H. Ell believes he was just being modest. He is responsible for think tanks and advocacy organizations that have played the central role in changing the culture and direction of the GOP whether he likes it or not. Declaring war on George W. Bush, 43, was the seminal event that spawned the Tea Party. He has get togethers of the likeminded that Presidential candidates literally die to be invited too. This year round Cruz, Rubio and the departed Scott Walker were in attendance. The brothers were the founders of the most influential Political Action Committee, America For Prosperity and the lists of libertarian and Conservative leaning organizations that they are involved in are legion.
Softball empathetic counsellor MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough might have enquired, “Do you feel that anything you might have done has created the dilemma you now are in with regard to the direction the country is going and for the present array of candidates for the Republican nomination?”. Because much like with Bush 43, whom the Kochs despised for going into Iraq not only wasting trillions accompanied by the loss of thousands of lives, there are unintended consequences to their interventions as well. Bush has the Middle East chaos on his conscience and the Kochs have the three ringed circus that passes for a Republican nomination contest on theirs.
Well enough already with the blame game let us look at the Koch dilemma.
WHO WILL IT BE?
Now Governor Walker, who the Kochs were said to favor, is out of the race, retired hurt. So let us move to the hopefuls that the Kochs will never support. Numero uno in this category is the flag bearer of the Bush dynasty, George W’s brother, Jeb. Then there are the no hopers on the B list, Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rick Santorum. No sense in wasting all that hard earned cash. In addition there are a list of Tea Party fellow travelers on the original A list that are also chanceless - Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina. There are two candidates that the Kochs are unlikely to live with - Chris Christie and John Kasich. The choice has to come from the remaining four - the big two, Ben Carson and Donald Trump and the newest white hopes Marc Rubio and Ted Cruz.
WHO FITS THE KOCH’S LIBERTARIAN BILL?
Going over this list you can understand the Koch angst. They all represent anarchy. The lot have disowned the Republican Party and want to negotiate the rules of the debates on their own. There is precious little that they agree about the debates either other than they all don’t want to be asked questions that might embarrass them. Trump and Carson are ad idem on one item - keep the debates short so the others cannot get too much exposure. Trump is holding the media to ransom. As the number one attraction, as he so modestly reminds everyone, they are more less negotiating with him with what is a sequel to his “The Apprentice” show. Their objective is ratings and Trump delivers. Now while Trump is being discussed he does not want Koch money, for the moment, he has enough of his own so that rules him out as a Koch welfare recipient. Anyhow Trump is all over the show - his populist financial stuff must leave the Kochs stone cold. He wants to keep Medicare and Social Security. So no sour grapes that The Donald does not want their pot of gold they wouldn’t pick him anyway!
Now it is conceivable that Chris Christie could be lifted over the hustings with a ton of money but he is flawed in more ways than one. Anyway Fox kicked him off their main debate. More to the point, he, like chanceless Kasich, compromises on welfare and the like. What about Rand Paul he is a Libertarian just like the Kochs but he is at 1 percent and is as crazy as the rest of them. Oh woe is me. Now the Kochs, Jay H. Ell is sure do not want to spend all that money lifting someone from 1% to 10% in the polls so realistically it boils down to choosing between Ben Carson, Marc Rubio and Ted Cruz. Carson has to be too off the wall to garner any type of institutional support - some of his statements like Joseph built the pyramids to store wheat and have to really put his sanity into question. The latter two have been honored by invitations to a Koch rendezvous with the rich and the generous so it has to one of them.
The Kochs, one would imagine, if it gets down to Cruz or Rubio would let the two of them duke it out and then go for the winner. The thought of either of these two neophytes is scary but someone has to do it! So the Kochs will hang on to their money till then.
This is all moot if Carson and Trump keep to the top of the pile. Then what? Do they sling all this money behind one of them to keep Hillary out? Jay H. Ell’s guess is that they will then concentrate on the legislature elections.
WHAT ABOUT THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT?
Karl Rove and the Establishment cannot fold that easily and Jay H. Ell’s guess is that they have to have a dog in this fight. Secretly, they will never give up on Jeb till Jeb gives up on Jeb. But Daddy Bush has joined Mommy Bush in wanting Jeb out of this race by criticising Dubbaya Bush on Iraq when Jeb had supported him. (If the three Bush's can't be on the same page the GOP are in even more trouble than imagined). They will certainly look at Kasich and Christie a lot longer than the Koch crowd. However, if all else fails they will tip the nomination in favor of Rubio and declare him their candidate too. (Now Rubio if he hits Prime Time has real money problems relating to his person and alleged malfeasance with expenditures while in the Florida legislature).
But again all this is moot if the two independent musketeers, Trump and Carson hang onto the top positions. However, unlike the Kochs, the establishment will spend money, big money, to keep them out. If one of those became the nominee then what are the GOP supporting? Can they ally themselves on deporting 12 million Latinos. In addition the Tea Party literature is full of Trump punting gold over the dollar. Or can they ride along with Carson and own statements such as that if the Jews would have had guns there wouldn’t have been a holocaust or that in the endless gun massacres in schools it is the victims’ fault as they should rush the shooter!
THE ESTABLISHMENT DESERVE THIS MESS AS WELL
If the Kochs are to blame for facilitating the climate for this disaster the Establishment are even more culpable as they allowed to happen and did nothing to counter it. After the last election they had a post mortem that warned them not to repeat everything that they had done in the 2012 cycle. But once again they stood by in the hope that the Tea Party cranks would fall by the wayside, as they did last time.Then carrying on that hope that the candidate that emerged could change the Presidential election narrative just like Romney couldn’t last time. The Party elders to this day haven’t challenged the Tea Party narrative. They still haven’t heeded the warnings about ignoring the demographics that they need to win an election. Instead they have antagonized them even more.
They have sat by and hoped that it would all go away and now they have a Trump or a Carson as their standard bearer. And failing them Cruz who has told the Republican leader in the Senate to go to hell. Or at best Rubio who declared war on the personification of the GOP Jeb Bush and who is a pompous whipper snapper who politically is all over the show. The cancer has metastasized even further. The Senate is almost certainly lost and their new white hope speaker Paul Ryan is history, like Boehner, if he doesn’t pander to the crazies. By his statement that, “it would be ridiculous to do anything about immigration”, ostensibly because he doesn’t trust Obama, he has upped the ante in exclusivism.
Just to remind Reince Priebus the Chairman of the Republican Party, whom all the Presidential candidates have just ditched, what the 2012 report he commissioned told him:
“The Republican Party needs stop talking to itself. We have become expert to providing ideological reinforcement to like minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with or welcoming to, those who don’t agree with us on every issue”.
It’s worse than that now as the narrative has become even more exclusive. This discussion is pervasive in every arena whether it be the Benghazi hearings, Planned Parenthood, LBGT equality, minimum wage and the like.
CARSON, TRUMP, CRUZ, FIORINA ET AL ARE FOR REAL
For those all knowing pundits that are reassuring themselves that all these “outliers” are not for real they need to get real themselves. The disillusionment with politics and its politicians is endemic. The body politic is highly impressed with Trump, his record, his confidence and his independence. Likewise Carson, the antithesis of Trump’s bluster exudes politeness, capability and sincerity. Most of all they are both regarded as honest brokers.
While the anti political establishment impact is far more marked in the GOP the Dems are not immune from this sentiment. Bernie Sanders, who is wowing the youth on the coasts, is not exactly a career Party politician. Although he is running for the Democratic Party nomination he is elected as an Independent and he has been on the fringe all his life. The GOP however has been totally taken over by the “independents” nearly all of whom no longer toe the Party line. The last establishment member standing is Jeb Bush who is looking quainter and quainter every day.
For the record over fifty percent of the GOP registered voters are supporting candidates in the Presidential Primary that have never ever occupied political office. This is not a fleeting phenomenon in fact the number is growing. Then the next two candidates with about ten percent each are Cruz and Rubio both who have only been in the Senate for two years and are wildly anti establishment. So where is Jeb going to get his votes from?
Hillary has to have one fear - low turn out. The “GOP” has just won the Kentucky Governorship with a Trump clone and the turn out was thirty percent. Hillary needs to capitalize on the enthusiasm Bernie has created amongst the youth and see that they follow through with her. To date Hillary has moved with the times and Elizabeth Warren is way out in front of it all. Come to think of it Obama was a political neophyte from left field himself so maybe the Dems have already made their adjustment!
And don’t cry too much for the GOP Old Boys there are just tons of boards they can join and legal firms that are lobbyists - although at this rate they will have no colleagues left to lobby.
WHERE THE KOCH MONEY SHOULD GO
Jay H. Ell believes that the Kochs should either spend all their money on prison reform which they agree with or give it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or even better the Clinton Charitable Foundation, either one who will put it to good use. Or maybe they will learn something new in the next debate on November 10 but Jay H. Ell is sure they are not holding their breaths.
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