What is it with liberals and the Koch brothers? Our "progressive" friends must spend an inordinate amount of time peeking beneath their beds each night to ensure those ol' boogeymen are not hiding there. If you believe the left -- and, really, who does? -- the libertarian businessmen and philanthropists are devils incarnate.
It has become tres chic in distribute-the-wealth circles to excoriate the brothers willy-nilly -- their supposed political sins conjured from thin air by the sorry likes of failed Democratic pooh-bah Harry Reid -- as if leftist billionaires Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros and their fat cat pals somehow do not exist.
Nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org, by the way, lists Steyer, with $74 million in donations, and Bloomberg, with a paltry $24 million, as the nation's top two individual political contributors in 2014. Both handed almost all their contributions to Democrats or liberals, as did five of the top 10 donors, including Soros, at 10th, with $3.8 million. The Kochs? David was 24th on the list, with $2.4 million, and Charles, 26th, with $2.3 million.
Eight of 10 top organizations contributing -- mostly unions -- supported Democrats or liberals, OpenSecrets says. Koch Industries? Way down the list, at 16th.
None of that fazes our friends on the left. The ADN last week even ran a Miami Herald editorial cartoon indicating the United States is owned or controlled by the evil Kochs, who head Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest private company. A column headline in the newspaper later exclaimed, "If money is speech, the Koch brothers are talking the loudest." Good grief.
In its black little heart, the class-envious left just wants the Kochs to shut up, stand still and wear a target. It wants them to be boogeymen. It needs them to be boogeymen. In elections across the land, including Alaska's recent Senate contest, I'm sorry to say, Democrats desperately needing somebody -- anybody to hate -- trotted out the Koch brothers to attack as part of what BuzzFeed reporter Andrew Kaczynski characterized as an "almost pathetic" strategy that did not work. With rare exception -- and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan springs to mind -- the left was swamped by a Republican tidal wave. And Peters, it turns out, was a fluke. Blue state. Weak opposition.
The good news for Republicans is that the left is making noises about trotting out the failed, expensive strategy again for the 2016 election, with some suggesting they turn up the heat and volume.
The latest spate of Koch-bashing was sparked by a report by The New York Times on the brothers' conservative network -- unchained by sensible court decisions defining and protecting political speech -- intends in the 2016 election to spend $889 million gathered from hundreds of donors. It would encompass congressional races and the presidential contest and put the Koch network on a power par with the GOP and Democratic parties. An "unparalleled effort," The Times harrumps.
That level of spending makes the brothers enticing targets for the Sen. Reids of the world, those rascals whose hypocrisy, venom and lack of vision are boundless. (Reid, in a bout of McCarthyesque frenzy, unbelievably went so far as to accuse the Kochs of being "against everything that's good for America.")
Let's face it, the Kochs' political power stems from their extreme wealth -- they're worth more than $40 billion each -- and their ability to persuade other like-minded, wealthy conservatives to ante up. But the fact they espouse values most Americans embrace also plays a role. They give hundreds of millions to everything from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to the United Negro College Fund to MIT. They support free markets, entrepreneurship, lower taxes, deregulation and limited government -- absolute anathema for government-dependent, tax-and-spend leeches like Reid.
The Kochs' extensive network first started gathering political contributions about a decade ago from a handful of donors at a Chicago gathering. It has grown steadily since, supporting conservatives, effectively opposing the left.
That is what galls liberals. They abhor opposition because, frankly, their message depends on smoke and mirrors. The Kochs are strong, opposing voices that cannot be silenced. Do the brothers buy elections? Hardly. Your vote is yours. Do they somehow trick you into voting against your best interests? Only if you are a nitwit.
Do they ensure a conservative message is heard through liberal static?
You bet -- and for leftists that is more than enough for the brothers to be considered boogeymen.
Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, e-mail commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com