For some time now, the smart money in political circles has been on Scott Walker becoming the Republican nominee for president-even though primary voters hadn't yet thought much about him. If you look at primary polls, up until October of last year, Walker was at around 5 percent support, which is essentially nothing. Then as the media started to focus more on the race after the midterm elections were over, Walker began a steady rise, and he's now second to Jeb Bush. And he just got what could be the most important endorsement of all:
On Monday, at a fund-raising event in Manhattan for the New York State Republican Party, David Koch told donors that he and his brother, who oversee one of the biggest private political organizations in the country, believed that Mr. Walker would be the Republican nominee.
"When the primaries are over and Scott Walker gets the nomination," Mr. Koch told the crowd, the billionaire brothers would support him, according to a spokeswoman. The remark drew laughter and applause from the audience of fellow donors and Republican activists, who had come to hear Mr. Walker speak earlier at the event, held at the Union League Club.
Two people who attended the event said they heard Mr. Koch go even further, indicating that Mr. Walker should be the Republican nominee. A spokeswoman disputed that wording, saying that Mr. Koch had pledged to remain officially neutral during the primary campaign.
But Mr. Koch's remark left little doubt among attendees of where his heart is, and could effectively end one of the most closely watched contests in the "invisible primary," a period where candidates crisscross the country seeking not the support of voters but the blessing of their party's biggest donors and fund-raisers.
We should be clear on two things. First, the Kochs may not actually invest in a candidate in the primaries, whatever their feelings are. Second, even if they did, the money they spent probably wouldn't sway the outcome. In 2012 Sheldon Adelson spent $20 million trying to make Newt Gingrich the nominee, and we saw how that worked out. The other candidates will be amply funded as well; there are other billionaires out there who will make sure that Bush, Marco Rubio, and possibly others will have more than enough money to keep up.
But in the "invisible primary," the Koch's nod of approval can be a powerful symbol. When the Republican Party's biggest funders-who plan to spend nearly a billion dollars on the 2016 campaign-say that Walker is their guy, it will almost inevitably make a lot of other people important to the primary process think very seriously about him. That includes other funders, party officials, key operatives, and the kind of state and local organizers and endorsers who can be so critical in early contests. The main reason Walker has seemed like he has such potential is his ability to appeal to both sides of the central divide in the GOP, between the establishment and the grassroots. But if the Kochs are supporting him, even informally, all of a sudden he seems like nearly as much the establishment candidate as Jeb Bush.
My own opinion is that despite what many in the party will say, you'd much rather be the establishment candidate than the scrappy insurgent. But what is it about Walker that the Kochs find so attractive? We can't read their minds, of course, but like all of us they probably believe that their own personal favorite is the most electable candidate. Walker's core primary message-that unabashed conservatism with a hard partisan edge is not only right but politically shrewd-is surely as appealing to them as to any other Republican.
And while all the Republican candidates are committed to laissez-faire economics, Walker has already demonstrated the missionary zeal he brings to crushing unions and working for the interests of the wealthy and corporations. Perhaps the Kochs look at Jeb Bush and see someone who might someday feel the stirrings of a troubling noblesse oblige and go soft on the unwashed masses. But Scott Walker? Never.
