Koch brothers’ cash will wash over California, experts say

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Koch-brothers-cash-will-wash-over-California-6044288.php

The billionaire Koch brothers’ intention to spend nearly $900 million on conservative candidates and causes in the 2016 election cycle will unleash a tidal wave of cash that will swamp the political landscape even in solidly blue California, experts said Tuesday.

When it comes to spreading money around, the spending plan that industrialists Charles and David Koch unveiled Monday will put the brothers and an estimated 300 conservative mega-donors in their network on a plane now occupied only by the country’s two major political parties.

“It is staggering,” said Jessica Levinson, who teaches political ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “It’s not a pebble in the pond, it’s an asteroid in the ocean.”...

One race certain to be affected by the Kochs’ money, she said, is the contest for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by California Democrat Barbara Boxer, even though no prominent Republican candidates are on the horizon.

"an asteroid in the ocean" is an extinction-level event.

As to the Senate race, our bizarre top-two primary system means that the general election could very well be real Dem (Kamala Harris?) against ersatz Third Way Dem (Ro Khanna?!) And you know which way the Koch bottle will roll.

[Cleita]

1. It sure did over our last election here locally.

Our new mayor of Arroyo Grande, a write in candidate, was awash in money to conduct a campaign with all kinds of signs, commercial time and "volunteers" running around all over what is a small town. He has ties to the energy industry and is a nuclear engineer. No conflict of interest there.

Our County Board of Supervisor winner, a tea bagger, also seemed to have a bottomless supply of campaign funds in a underpopulated largely rural part of the state. I tried to trace down her contributors but came up with less than a $1,000 I could find. The commercial time alone bought by this candidate I'm sure exceeded that amount by lots.

[daredtowork]

11. All politics is local

People will focus their energies on "big" campaigns and get more deadlocked congresses and/or congresses that focus on "big" policy that mainly touches the 1%.

Meanwhile the Koch Mafia will take over local politics, their minions will continue to wage"culture war" via every media outlet until our brains our saturated with their selfish amoral messages, and people will discover they can't get real world problems handled.

Votes will be eliminated as the poor are pushed into homelessness, the elderly are foced to move abroad, the over-stressed disabled die, and the remaining vote manipulated by gerrymandering, implementation of Voter qualification laws, and plain old dirty tricks.

The local politicians have to be working for the local constituents. That is foundational.

[AndyTiedye]

15. The Rest Must Have Been "Dark Money"

Nobody will ever know how much there is, nobody will ever know where it comes from.
Corporate money, mob money, foreign money, anything goes.

We can only guess at the amounts when the ads show up on the Tee Vee, and the
swarms of paid operatives show up to canvass.

[jwirr]

2. Now we are going to see if the people of California can be bought. That is the message they and

their money give to the voter. We need to emphasis it.

[KamaAina]

3. Governor NutMeg Whitman could not be reached for comment.

But it just occurred to me that the Koch Whores are in an even better position than the usual suspects to torpedo progressive initiatives like last year's Prop 45, and possibly even to get bad ones passed.

[procon]

4. To our detriment, outside money certainly influenced Prop 8 voters

Big Money and the Big Lie message is an unbeatable combination, and the Republican apparatchiks have mastered it well.

[jwirr]

5. One of our goals all across the country is to try to infulence voters to see that they are being

bought whenever Koch money is involved and that it is not meant to help them.

[Auggie]

6. Most Californians are too smart for this shit

[KamaAina]

7. O rly?

Explain Prop H8, then. It took the courts to get us out of that mess.

[Auggie]

8. I said most

That was 7 years ago too. It's a different state now.

[KamaAina]

9. Well, more of them voted for it than against it

back then.

[Auggie]

13. I think it will be different in 2016

[KamaAina]

14. Let's hope so!

[KamaAina]

10. Also, Ahh-nuld

Twice.

[daredtowork]

12. lol pwnt. nt