WASHINGTON — Reactions from Democrats to news that the billionaire Koch brothers are planning an $889 million blitz for the 2016 election has run the gambit from outright alarm to shoulder shrugs.
Various top party officials interviewed by The Huffington Post said they expected outside groups and campaign committees to further elevate their attacks on the Kochs heading into the next election. Portraying the brothers as political villains was a prominent plank of the 2014 game plan. And though that election ended horribly for the party, there is little sense that Democrats should back off now that Koch entities will play an even larger role in 2016.
“We’re going all out with the research and the communications in the 2016 cycle,” David Brock, founder of American Bridge 21st Century and MediaMatters.org, told The Huffington Post.
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Targeting like this was tried in the 2014 campaign by Democratic-backing organizations. NextGen Climate, the super PAC backed by $70 million from the billionaire former hedge fund executive-turned-environmentalist Tom Steyer, ran an ad stating that Koch Industries had polluted Detroit’s 48217 zip code and was now dumping money into Land’s campaign. NextGen Climate spokesman Chris Lehane told HuffPost that Steyer’s group would continue with this type of attack ad in 2016, describing it as “using the Kochs as a fully weighted oil drum that we tie to the Republican candidates and presidential candidate.”
In an email to HuffPost, Lehane tried to allay Democratic concerns about whether those ads will get drowned out by the $889 million from the other side.
“Given all of this, it only reinforces that Tom [Steyer] — along with other progressive groups — are the David taking on the Koch Goliath,” Lehane wrote. “The good news is that because of Tom and others we do have the resources to deploy a slingshot that will fire hard, fire fast and fire on target and we can make up the delta between our resources and the amount of money being spent by the Kochs because we have truth and justice on our side.”
