Last week, Jonathan Chait offered this thesis in response to defenders of Charles and David Koch, arguing that the Koch's socially liberal views are basically irrelevant:
Another way to put this is that the Kochs will happily put their money behind candidates and intellectuals who agree with their economic agenda but disagree with their social agenda. They will never put their money behind candidates or intellectuals of whom the reverse is true.
Radley Balko pointed out that the Kochs had given a sizable donation, $20 million, to the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the PATRIOT Act. That's certainly a fact that should be better known than it is. Yet I think if you adjust Chait's thesis, it's more or less accurate:
Another way to put this is that the Kochs will happily put their money behind candidates who agree with their economic agenda but disagree with their social agenda. They will never put their money behind candidates of whom the reverse is true.
The best example of this I can think of is the Senate's lost liberaltarian Russ Feingold. Feingold was the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act. He was one of the first senators to endorse marriage equality. He voted against the war in Iraq, against TARP and financial reform, and has consistently sought to rein in the surveillance state. He was, however, also one of the architects of campaign-finance reform along with John McCain and a supporter of the health-care bill and the stimulus.
When Feingold's candidacy was in danger, the Koch's poured their money into the coffers of Feingold's opponent, Ron Johnson. According to the FEC, the Koch brothers each gave him individual contributions of $2,400, while KochPAC gave him $10,000. Charles Koch's son Chase Koch gave Johnson $5,800, while David's* wife Julia Koch gave another $2,400. An Elizabeth Koch from the same zip code in Wichita as Charles and Julia gave an additional $2,400. All in all, the Koch family gave Johnson more than $25,000 to send Russ Feingold home. What type of candidate were they supporting?
Johnson is anti-marriage equality, anti-choice, has no problem with open-ended military engagements and he supports the PATRIOT Act with some caveats, but only because "you have Barack Obama in power versus George Bush. I wasn't overly concerned with George Bush in power." Of course Johnson opposes "government spending" when he's not getting the money; he opposes government regulation of businesses and believes it's "crazy" to think that man-made activity causes global warming.
In other words, faced with one candidate who shares their views on social issues and national security and another who shares their views on economic issues, the Kochs chose the latter. When Chait writes that the Kochs "believe in limited government almost across the board, but their energies are devoted to economics in general and policies that benefit them in particular," he's only being somewhat unfair. The 2010 Wisconsin Senate race is about as good as a thought experiment as we'll get in terms of testing the modified version of Chait's thesis, and we can see for ourselves how it turned out. The Kochs, like everyone else, have priorities.
*corrected
