The Kocks are at it again...

The Kocks put a price on 2016: $889 million

By Kenneth P. Vogel

The Kock brothers’ operation intends to spend $889 million in the run-up to the 2016 elections — a historic sum that in many ways would mark Charles and David Kock and their fellow conservative megadonors as more powerful than the official Republican Party.

The figure, which more than doubles the amount spent by the Republican National Committee during the last presidential election cycle, prompted cheers from some in the GOP who are looking for all the help they can get headed into a potentially tough 2016 election landscape.

But while the leaked details seemed in part a show of defiance to Democrats, who had targeted the brothers as bogeymen, the spending goal also appeared to be a show of dominance to rival factions on the right, including the RNC.

A spokesman for the RNC did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Some Republicans, however, quietly grumbled about the continued migration of power and money from the political parties and their candidates to super-rich donors emboldened by recent court decisions loosening campaign finance restrictions.

The budget figure was shared with donors during a Monday morning session at the Kock network’s annual winter donor gathering at the Ritz-Carlton in Rancho Mirage, California, according to an attendee.

In the run-up to 2012, the RNC spent $404 million, while it dropped $188 million during last year’s midterms. To be sure, the RNC’s spending was supplemented by congressional campaign arms, but one reason the Kock operation has an edge over the traditional party apparatus like the RNC is that the Kocks and their operatives don’t have to spread cash across the entire GOP political landscape.

Rather, they’re able to pick their spots, funding initiatives targeting specific slices of the electorate — such as Hispanic voters, veterans or millennials — or specific issues that jibe with the libertarian-inflected conservatism of the billionaire industrialist brothers.

The Kock brothers’ political power stems from their extreme wealth — they’re worth more than $40 billion each — and their ability to mobilize other wealthy conservative donors to give money to their favored causes.

The $889 million will be raised from a network of a few hundred donors who attend twice-a-year gatherings like the one at the Ritz. The gatherings, known as “seminars” in Kock world, typically run for three days and end with pledge sessions during which donors contribute six- and seven-figure sums to help fund the advocacy efforts detailed at the meetings.

The efforts have been overseen since late 2011 by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the nonprofit outfit that organized the Rancho Mirage meeting. Freedom Partners disseminates cash to an array of nonprofit advocacy groups — most of which do not disclose their donors’ identities — that combined to spend about $290 million in the run-up to the 2014 midterm elections. Millions went to fund hard-hitting ads that were credited with softening up vulnerable Democratic senators who ultimately lost to Republican challengers.

Democrats, who have worked to rally their own networks of rich donors, reacted to Monday’s news by signaling they intended to re-up their attacks on the Kocks, despite the fact that the strategy appeared to do little to stave off the Republican wave of victories in 2014.

Asked for his reaction to the Kock spending figure, Democratic National Committee spokesman Mo Elleithee turned sarcastic: “Wait, you mean a bunch of billionaires are going to spend nearly $1 billion in pocket change to try to buy a president to rig the system for them and give them massive tax breaks that no one else gets? I’m shocked!”

Advocates for reducing the role of money in politics cast the news as the continuation of a disturbing trend that has elevated the voices of the very rich over those of regular Americans.

“This is the natural consequence of regime with essentially no contribution limits — a smaller and smaller number giving larger and larger amounts,” said Larry Lessig, a Harvard professor who created a super PAC to support politicians who back policies intended to empower mom-and-pop contributors.

Told of the $889 million goal, Mark McKinnon, a veteran GOP operative who has worked to rally Republican support to reduce the role of money in politics, quipped: “For that kind of money, you could buy yourself a president. Oh, right. That’s the point.”

If the groups in the Kock effort reach their goal (and the network usually does meet its fundraising goals), it would continue the rapid growth of the initiative launched by the Kocks about a decade ago in Chicago at the first seminar, which drew just 15 donors.

The network emerged as a political force to be reckoned with in the run-up to the 2012 election, when it spent upward of $400 million including on tough ads attacking President Barack Obama, his signature health law and the Democrats who supported it.

The eagerness of the network’s donors to resume their big giving after Election Day 2012 failed to produce a GOP White House or Senate demonstrated that the Kocks and their supporters are taking a long view unusual in American big money politics and that they will not be dissuaded in their pursuit of their public policy agenda: a smaller government that does not interfere in free enterprise.

During a Saturday night welcome speech in Rancho Mirage, Charles Kock took a modest victory lap — calling the midterms “an important step in slowing down the march toward collectivism” — but he implored the assembled donors to dig deep heading into 2016.

Espousing a political worldview that protects free speech and “individual and property rights with equal protection for everyone under the law,” Kock said: “It is up to us. Making this vision a reality will require more than a financial commitment. It requires making it a central part of our lives.”

The willingness of major donors to heed the fundraising solicitations of the Kocks and their operatives makes the network a potentially major player in the 2016 GOP presidential sweepstakes. The Rancho Mirage meeting drew appearances from leading prospective candidates, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida, and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

The three senators participated in a Sunday night forum — which was live-streamed to select media outlets in a step toward transparency at the traditionally secretive seminars. It had some of the trappings of a presidential debate, and was moderated by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, who wrapped up the event with a question on the role wealthy donors should play in politics, giving the senators a chance to defend and praise the Kocks and other donors present in the room.

“There are a bunch of Democrats who have taken as their talking point that the Kock brothers are the nexus of all evil in the world. Harry Reid says that every week. Let me be very clear, I think that is grotesque and offensive,” Cruz said to cheers from the audience.

“I admire Charles and David Kock. They are businessman who have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and they have stood up for free-market principles and endured vilification with equanimity and grace,” he continued, later referring to the donors at the forum as “patriots.”