The schadenfreude, it is delicious. From Elspeth Reeve at the Atlantic Wire:
The massive amount of outside political spending unleashed by Citizens United did not, as feared, make it easier for rich people to buy an election. Instead, it showed that rich people are pretty dumb about politics. Take the billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch who are spending their 2013 figuring out why they the money they spent in 2012 was such a waste. They have already fired most of their 100 staffers at Americans for Prosperity, and they’re now conducting an audit.
Like American Crossroads and the Republican National Committee, the Koch brothers are trying to figure out why they couldn’t beat President Obama — and several Democratic Senate candidates in red states. The Kochs have delayed their twice-a-year meetings with big conservative donors until they’ve finished their audit, Politico‘s Kenneth P. Vogel reports. The results of the audit will be presented at an April seminar, Vogel writes, adding, “Early indications suggest that they’ll continue playing in politics but will tweak their approach to reflect 2012 lessons.”…
Vogel reports one result of that reexamination is the creation of a new secret money group, Association for American Innovation, and they’re keeping a Latino-outreach group called Libre Initiative. This is the GOP’s current internal debate in a nutshell: Do we need to change our ideas? Or just the packaging? Given Marco Rubio’s State of the Union response restating Mitt Romney’s platform, it seems both the party and the Kochs are leaning toward the latter.
Maybe some underground comedian could convince the brothers to just offer every eligible American a flat sum for their vote. Given the Koch history, of course, we’ll all have to insist on payment in advance.
sm*t cl*de
the creation of a new secret money group
So ultimately they’re relying on Security by Obscurity?
Someone needs to sit them down and explain to them that if their projects contain such gaping vulnerabilities that they will only work as long as people are unaware of them, then perhaps they should start again with something more robust.
Smitty
So is the “something more robust” Free Citizen Militias in nice brown shirts or Blackwater uniforms exercising second amendment solutions? If buying an election doesn’t work, what might they buy instead? Yeah I know, I’m crazy. Right? Right?
Amir Khalid
@sm*t cl*de:
The problem with that is, it amounts to expecting Masters of The Universe like the Koch brothers to admit that the fault lies with them: that the gaping vulnerabilities in their project arise from their own flawed world-view. To admit such is to abdicate as a Master of The Universe.
Keith G
As our society gets more diverse in multiple ways, it seems like it will be a bit more difficult for folks like the Koch Bros. to “get their monies worth.” Of course, the growing “herding cats” phenomenon will also make ordinary political acts of governance (non Koch influenced) also more dicey.
Ultraviolet Thunder
That was CU V 1.0. And it was a failure. But I expect them to learn and improve. Seeing them faceplant in 2012 is not much of a relief to me. With so much at stake, they’ll find methods that work.
Patricia Kayden
If they’re smart, in 2016 they’ll pick a more likable candidate than McCain and Romney. Against Obama, both men came off like pricks.
Viva BrisVegas
If you are going to pander to a group, shouldn’t you go all out with an actual spanish language phrase for your outreach group rather than a half and half?
Being a Spanish illiterate, I leave it to Google Translate to tell me that it should be something more like “La Libre Iniciativa”. Which is much more euphonious than the original, even if just as empty.
Really, are they putting so little effort into this latin outreach that they can’t even be bothered with the language?
geg6
Who knew that a majority of Americans would decline the tasty anthrax and tire rims the brothers spent so much cash dressing up like ice cream and filet mignon? Sorry boys, but there’s not enough lipstick in the world to dress up that pig and the bacony smell only slightly covers the smell of the rot.
Schlemizel
@Patricia Kayden:
I think they thought they had that in Rmoney, before he went through the meat grinder that is the GOP primary process he seemed to many to be likable enough. The problem was he had to become (or more accurately publicly display) his inner prick in order to beat back the parade of inflamed assholes the moran brigade really wanted.
If the Kock brothers really want to get their moneys worth they have to figure out a way to tame those mouth breathing morans so that a giant prick like Rmoney can maintain his nice guy image until he gets into office. If they figure out how to sneak a smiling faced nutbag through the primary there is a very good chance they can finish the total destruction of the country so ably progressed through the last 3 Republican administrations.
Xenos
@Viva BrisVegas: I am not sure if they can do this. Authoritarians need control over language in order to demonize their enemies and to limit the scope of political action. As an example, decades of vilifying liberals has discredited the concept of ‘liberal’ for a couple generations of Americans. This can be effective, but is an expensive, time-consuming process. Doing it in multiple languages simultaneously is probably impossible.
geg6
OT, but how weird is this? Pittsburgh got a letter from the USOC asking if the city would be interested in putting together an Olympic bid for the Summer Olympics. I can only guess that it’s a result of hosting the G-20. Can’t imagine my city putting on a show that big.
kdaug
If only there were a way to raise the voting age to 65…
SiubhanDuinne
@geg6:
For the 2024 Games, I assume. Too late to put together a bid for 2020, which will be named in just a few months.
Punchy
@Patricia Kayden: Pricks are the only candys who can make it through the primaries. The base demands pricks. Insists on pricks.They’re stuck with pricks for some time. This is why Christie has no shot in 2016.
danielx
@Patricia Kayden:
This will be a problem, because the Republican base doesn’t care for likable candidates. They like candidates who act like assholes, and the more obnoxious the candidate is and the more toxic the candidate’s proposed policies the better they like it. They don’t need no nice guys, they want/need red meat, and – to repeat something I noted during the Republican primaries – they’d rather go down in ideologically pure flames than win elections with those namby-pamby RINOs.
Also, too – this is why you don’t want supermajority-controlled state legislatures.
Indiana legislature motto: we don’t like big government, except when we do.
amk
@Punchy: and christie is not a prick, why?
Xenos
It is hard to think of any prominant left-of-center politicians who are so obnoxious as to be comparable to the typical GOP/teabagger types. All I can think of is Al Sharpton back in the ’80s, or Jane Fonda back in the ’60s.
El Cid
The big money and billionaire types who gain the most success in influencing the politico-economic context do so systematically, long-term, and not-so-cartoonishly.
There have been reactionary capitalist-class ultra-rich oafs in politics for well over a century, and frequently their failures (often more noticed than their many victories) have stood in contrast to that of their better-behaved peers.
The National Association of Manufacturers and Liberty League freaks tea-partying the New Deal versus the Rockefeller types who had helped hatch and plan the New Deal.
Both included billionaires. The latter got more of their money’s worth. The former? Well, they shut up for a while once the federal contracts for wartime (i.e., Even Bigger New Deal) industry started rolling in.
Donut
The fact that the Kochs approach this total failure as an “audit” actually gives me some hope that these guys really are pretty fukkin clueless about national politics. Obama and the Democratic constituency and interest groups kicked their asses iim several ways. And one of the most important reasom why is because ideologically he is in tune pretty well with a solid majority of the country. They still think they have a message problem – and they do – but that’s not what killed them last year.
Anyway, on top of that, national politics is not a financial transaction alone. Money counts, but Obama proved last year that you cannot just open up the money spigot and expect to win it all in a presidential year.
Auditing evokes financial data analysis by a CPA in a meticulous fashion, which produces an opinion based on certain representations… Right?
Anyone think that the GOP in 2013 is capable of honestly leaving aside its prejudices in favor of Teh Awesomeness of Christian-identified white male heterosexuals?
Whatever conclusions they draw from this will be deeply flawed because they can’t fukkin handle the fact that they are not an ideological majority …
Because REAGAN, after all!
Ultraviolet Thunder
@amk:
Well of course he is. But he praised the president’s response to Hurricane Sandy so he doesn’t LOOK enough like a prick lately.
Southern Beale
In related news, is this payback, Republican style?
WereBear
When all you have is a bank account, everything looks like a bribe.
Ultraviolet Thunder
It’s lunchtime* here in Baden-Württemberg and I’ve already read all of my internets. I’m counting on you Juicers to keep me entertained.
*not eating. The combination of a vegetarian dietary habit, German cooking and the flu has completely terminated my appetite. Been living on granola and orange juice for 4 days now.
danielx
First good laugh of the day. If this is TBogg’s idea of semi-retirement from Left Blogistan, he should take time off more often.
Paul Harrington
They’ve fired most of their staff? This is just more evidence of Obama’s failed employment policies and excellent news for J̶o̶h̶n̶ ̶M̶c̶C̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶M̶i̶t̶t̶ ̶R̶o̶m̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶M̶a̶r̶c̶o̶ ̶R̶u̶b̶i̶o̶ Liz Cheney.
arguingwithsignposts
@Donut: I only with there were some way I could get in on some of that sweet, sweet “audit” grift that’s going to be going down at the Koch-funded ideology plants.
SiubhanDuinne
@Paul Harrington:
Hey, that’s cool! How did you do that wacky strike-out effect?
artem1s
@Donut:
I have to admit that I was relieved that the Democrats under the most attack from the Koch money didn’t knuckle under and try to soften their message for once. I can’t imagine Brown or Warren winning their races if they had come out as apologetic about their progressiveness. And they talked to their audience as if they could grasp complex problems.
the habit of appearing embarrassed at being liberal wasn’t the default position for once and I think that paid off big. Team Obama made Rmoney pay for his 47% remarks and all of the other BS he had been spouting for years about job creators and austerity. He also made him own up to the GOP contrary positions on ACA and any other issue they flipped on, just to oppose Obama.
I hope the DCCC gets it through their heads that they can win elections with progressive candidates who are proud of their records and if they do win, then they have much better legislators to work with afterward. Better even if they understand that for once the turn out wasn’t about beating the GOP as much as it was individuals standing up and participating for themselves.
Hell yes, we voted to get stuff we want! Why else do you vote? It’s not supposed to be an exercise in self abuse even if the GOP has convinced their members it should be.
OFA 2012 is the first time I can remember the Democratic Presidential candidate being so aggressively proactive in stating that their policies are designed to help the 99% because that’s been the thing saving our butts all along. And continuing to dismantle the New Deal is the worst possible thing for strengthening the economy and BTW, its not the government’s job to make Mitt Romney richer or give his pals a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Ash Can
@danielx: Heh! Good lInk, complete with purity troll rending its garments in the comment thread. LOL indeed.
oldster
I missed the thread last night congratulating the kitty on her new name.
Does this mean we can call her old man Zsohn-Zsohn?
(Oh sh*t–he’s gonna sic Tunch on me!)
the lost puppy
These geezers think the fact-free Rove model still works. These people are addicted to Fox News talking points and don’t realize the public isn’t buying anymore. It’s become a pathetically outdated model. Damn if it didn’t take a long time, but by election time it was long past its expiration date. How I have waited for this day, although it was beginning to look like it would never come.
The 90’s, the early 2000’s – Party’s over. Time for the Grampies to go to bed
the lost puppy
@kdaug:
Don’t give them any ideas!
Kay
The ads were terrible. Generic, boring, not connected to place or time. They bought so many stations ran them in clumps, one after another. I’m sure they’ll get better at it, though.
One media source that pushes conservatism/libertarianism that I don’t think gets enough attention by liberals is financial news and analysis programming. I listen to a couple in my car, and I’m always struck by how much of the “analysis” is just flat-out, conclusory conservative dogma. It’s sometimes wrapped in numbers, but it’s almost always there.
I pick it up when I talk to certain older people, too. The kind of retiree who has a stock fund or individual stocks and follows tv market analysis closely, either for fun or because they buy and sell individual stocks, even people who I know vote for Democrats. They’ll repeat what they heard on one of the “market channels” and it will be conservative economics 101. Whole paragraphs. I think it’s insidious, because these are not “wingnuts”, and I think the finance media personalities and guests who appear on these shows and inject conservative economic dogma into what is peddled as “analysis” have more credibility than someone like Rand Paul or Limbaugh.
the lost puppy
@Kay: But, but, Paul Krugman is mean
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Viva BrisVegas:
“Junta Libre.” All Spanish and completely tone-deaf. They should love it. And I’m putting a Colbert copyright on that.
Xboxershorts
She’s wrong. That spending bought quite a few state governments since 2010 and has done major damage to the recovery and even had a major impact on the 2012 general election where republican congressional votes were dwarfed by democratic party votes but were not enough to overcome major election shenanigans as well as the gerrymandering that helped the GOP hold onto the house.
With 22% self identifying as republicans, it should defy reason that republicans hold traditionally blue and purple state governments like PA, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan and more. And if you think these bastards can’t do any damage by running states into the ground, then you should just take a peek at what NC just did to hundreds of thousands of unemployed North Carolinians
OzarkHillbilly
The Kochs will never reject the “Romney platform”. They wrote it.
Patricia Kayden
@Southern Beale: That’s pretty strange. I thought WWE fans are (mostly) rightwingers who would love T’Bagger wrestlers. But I don’t pay much attention to WWE, so what do I know?
Jay
@Patricia Kayden: You actually get a wide variety of people watching WWE. If you don’t know what goes on behind the scenes, and just want some silly entertainment, its fun to watch.
You’re right that it historically has skewed towards the weird-wingers, but the management don’t care about politics in the ring, they care about making a show that people want to watch.
Which tells me that they think their fans may want to watch tea party heels (villains) get beat on for a bit. Which means the good guys are making in-roads even among the wrestling-watching classes.
But I DO know some of what goes on behind the scenes, which kinda ruins the fun for me.
Bulworth
I guess 100 former
makersproducersstaffers at AFP are going to have to start pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.Chris
@Steeplejack (tablet):
“Free dictatorship?” LOLOL. I love it. Goes so perfectly with all of their Ingsoc style claptrap.
Chris
@Xboxershorts:
I was just thinking the other day that if you figure that going back to the Gilded Age is their endgame objective – most of the politics in the Gilded Age happened at the state and local level. The elites didn’t operate as a big nationwide machine so much as a loose coalition of feudal lords (robber barons, share-croppers, political bosses, etc) who ran their own little fiefdoms and stayed out of each other’s hair.
Instead of destroying the New Deal state and then going back to the Gilded Age, looks like the 1% have decided to simply go straight back to that system, building up all their power and the state and local level (which are easier to buy). Presumably they’re betting that that’ll give them a solid enough position to block anything the federal government tries to do.
Slugger
Does this mean that if I show up in a used car lot with a sheaf of money falling out my pockets, I might get taken instead of being shown the finest item on the lot?
You’d think that seriously rich people would already understand the difference between going for a ride and being taken for a ride.
Hey, Mr. Koch, I have some sure-fire ways of getting what you want! It will take a few dollars up front, but don’t worry. Mr. Rove and I are 100% trustworthy.
Xboxershorts
@Chris: They’d seem to prefer we regressed to the failed articles of confederation, which we, as a nation, rejected a couple centuries ago
Villago Delenda Est
They can’t do that. They are greedy, selfish assholes. Their ideology reflects that.
So, it’s try to change the wrapper their shit comes in. They really have no other choice.
roc
Yeah… that’s not the take-away. The take-away is that, to date, the wealthy donors backed *insane* candidates. If they ran a reasonable human being who was to Obama’s right without tying the austerity/tax-rate goals to nonsense about abortion/contraception/immigration/benghazi!/etc, they’d have walked away with it.
I’m still of half a mind that the Tea Party thing was an *intentional* play to destroy the GOP, so that ‘the right’ could be more cheaply taken over. (Why ‘partner’ with someone who holds a strong negotiating hand, when you can destroy them outright and then press them into service?)
Once no-one is getting elected without Tea Party approval, they *are* the party and can slide to the center with ‘electable’ candidates who follow orders. (As opposed to negotiating and sharing power with incumbents who have no such total allegiance to your policy goals).
maya
Why a comedian? Since $$$ is now “free speech” according to the august firm of Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Scalia & Tomas, Inc. they could just run sweepstake ads on the tube.
Send us your vote and we will send you $200 in non-traceable cash! Call now. Operators standing by.
But then they would have to get the GOP to approve the use of more absentee balloting in key states so they could be sure they’re getting their free speech’s worth.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, that and changing the ideology means admitting – to the world, to each other and to themselves – that they’ve been full of shit all along, that Obama is not, in fact, a Stalinist monster out to ruin them, that raising taxes from their lowest level in eighty years to their previous lowest level in eighty years will not unravel the fabric of the universe… etc etc etc.
It’s hard for anyone to say “I was wrong.” Factor in the size of these particular people’s egos and the fact that they’d be saying it to an audience consisting of “the entire world…” yeah.
gbear
@Patricia Kayden: The script for WWE wrestling tends to move wrestlers back and forth between being good guys and bad guys. I’d say there’s a very good possibility that the teabagger wrestler will be a good guy before the mid-term elections.
Did you know that Bob Mould from Husker Du & Sugar spent a good chunk of time writing wrestling scripts? It’s in his autobiography (which made me not like him very much).
Roger Moore
@danielx:
ITYM: Shrinking government until it’s small enough to probe a vagina.
gbear
I left a letter off of my email address so my previous comment landed in moderation hell. Poor comment. I hope someone rescues it.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
That was my assumption, too, but I also remember that WWE fans tend to skew young, which is a group that’s likely to hate the teabaggers. Also, too, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot of immigrant Lucha Libre fans who have transferred their loyalty to WWE, and those are people you’d expect to hate a teabagger who talks tough about illegal immigration. It just goes to show that Conservatives’ only real principle is what will make them the most money.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
I think it would be more literally translated as “free committee”. “Junta” can refer to just about any committee in Spanish; the idea that it’s specifically a military dictatorship by committee is a narrowing of its meaning on transfer to English.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
DING DING DING DING DING
Pococurante
I wonder if SCOTUS anticipated their ruling would become a wealth transfer from the stupidly rich to the criminally corrupt… maybe I owe them an apology after all.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I’m not worried about this at all, for several reasons. 1) We’re looking at a social version of competitive evolution. The con artist always adapts faster than the mark. Rove is an elegant example. 2) The base wants crazy, and crazy lost the election. There’s no sign the base will stop wanting crazy or that they’ll stop forcing crazy with the primary system. 3) The Kochs ARE crazy. They’re not evil geniuses, they’re the foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics who set up the Birchers and funded all the craziest Tea Party candidates. 4) Every .1%er willing to spend money like the Kochs and Adelson is crazy almost by definition, and will be almost as or equally stupid. 5) This audit will magically result in the auditors recommending a new service with even less traceable accounts run by their brother.
Roger Moore
@Pococurante:
I think the Supreme Court- or at least some members of the Citizens United majority- may actually have been naive enough to believe that Congress would pass reasonable disclosure rules. The really politically toxic thing about the current situation isn’t just the unlimited spending, it’s the unlimited, unaccountable, anonymous/pseudonymous spending. Part of the problem for the right wingnuts is that they haven’t gotten creative enough with their ratfuckery. A few endorsements from fake groups representing people’s worst ideas of Democratic supporters might be more effective at supporting a wingnut candidate that direct attack ads or ones advocating what the wingnuts actually believe.
ranchandsyrup
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH DOESN’T WORK? UNBOOKMARK IT LIBS.
kuvasz
I would not be cheering about the loss of a few million dollars by billionaires. These folks have money to burn and the past several years have seen nothing but a huge organization simply begin to sight it’s aim. Once they figure out what to do they will be as bad as the worst scenarios that the opponents of Citzen United predicted.
Bokonon
Because clearly, the problem had to be the STAFFERS, not the cause or the content of what they were selling.
Trollhattan
@geg6:
What, Bakersfield’s airport is too small? Weird, weird choice should it go forward.
Bokonon
@Roger Moore:
I don’t think that the conservative block on the Supreme Court was naive at all. They tossed this hot potato back to the legislature with a smirk … knowing full well how difficult it would be in that self-same money driven political system to get that sort of legislation in place. Since it would dislose and disadvantage those self-same big donors that the Supreme Court was empowering, more now than ever. Legislative dysfunction is a feature, not a bug here.
And great thing is that having blown up all the controls and standards that were in place, the Supreme Court can just walk away and say “hey … not our problem. We just ruled on the Constitutional issues as we saw them. Guess it is up to the voters to find their way to select better politicians that will give them transparency and disclosure, if that’s what the public really wants. Just so long as Congress can find a way to square those disclosure burdens with our ruling. And if it doesn’t happen? Not a Constitutional issue. Bye now.”
Bubblegum Tate
@Jay:
Yeah, this. A lot of wrestling fans I know are of the decidedly liberal variety. Of course, they’re more “smarks” than fans, much more interested in “wrestling as a storytelling medium” and the backstage machinations than the actual in-ring action (which they mostly appreciate as well-done stunt work), but still.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
So….er…
Montana will have up for referendum what is called the “Sheriffs First” bill, proclaiming that any and all federal officials wishing to enforce federal law must clear anything with local law enforcement, and if they try to arrest anyone without clearing with the local establishment, THEY will be arrested and charged with kidnapping.
In other words, a nice shiny coat of nullification and ‘fuck you Feds’. The kicker being the claim by the bill writer that if this bill were law, Waco would never have happened and David Koresh would’ve just stood down under the face of the nice understandable local sheriffs.
Mnemosyne
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
I’m sure that will work out well as bank robbers and other federal criminals from other states go to Montana and mock the FBI to try and arrest them since there are no state charges against them that the local cops could arrest them on. What could possibly go wrong?
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think it will work that way. Federal law enforcement officials will still be able to arrest criminals, they just need permission from local law enforcement to do it. Since local law enforcement has no reason to want to protect a bunch of out-of-state bank robbers, the permission should be forthcoming. The people this is designed to protect are buddies of the local sheriff, like corrupt local officials who are already paying him off for not arresting them on state charges. Also too, anyone who’s breaking federal laws the local sheriff wants to nullify, like firearms laws.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
And by the time the permission is forthcoming, the bank robbers have hopped over the county line to a different county, where the process starts all over again.
I’m not saying that Montana law enforcement is planning to deliberately protect bank robbers. I’m saying that it will be an unintended consequence of their insistence that the FBI get permission from every local authority before they can do any arrests.