Could the Koch Brothers End Up Destroying the Republican Party?

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/could-koch-brothers-end-destroying-republican-party

I confess to having once been agnostic toward Charles and David Koch. For quite a while, actually. To me they were the boogeymen of the left, the people liberals complained about to agitate the base, or when they had no better ammunition to fire against conservatives and Republicans. Despite countless exposés of “Koch-funded” organizations, they just didn’t seem that threatening. The Koch brothers’ most public outlet for political activism, Americans for Prosperity, was a joke. The group spent its money fighting climate change legislation by flying a 70-foot hot air balloon across the country. Hot air, climate change, zing.

I’ve since been disabused of that attitude. Americans for Prosperity has grown from a collection of sideshow balloonists to one of the heaviest-hitting political groups in the country (though you can still get a balloon ride if you want). The sprawling, multi-state operation is working to kick Democrats out of office and put together a “personal electoral laboratory to fine-tune get-out-the-vote tools and messaging for future elections as it pursues its overarching goal of convincing Americans that big government is bad government,” per the New York Times.

Now, you may be asking yourself: “Isn’t that what the Republican Party is supposed to be doing?” In a word, yes. But the Kochs are creating their own political machine. And while that’s bad news for vulnerable Senate Democrats facing down the onslaught of TV ads AFP has planned, it should also be worrying for the GOP.

The animating purpose of a party is to have control – over the influence, over the money, over the policy. And it has to have control of the agenda. That is what makes a party a party. It sets an agenda and then uses money, policy and influence to get the public on its side. Republicans have not been very successful over the past decade at selling their agenda to the public. All the while, conservatives have been left to sit and stew while the Obama agenda slowly, inexorably marches toward fruition. There’s palpable frustration from movement conservatives at the Republican establishment.