Widely you hear laments that huge money pumped into political campaigns by wealthy donors with an agenda is wrecking the nation’s electoral system.
Much of the focus centers on Charles and David Koch of Kansas, the billionaire brothers whose fortunes come from energy and chemical companies.
The Kochs are best known as patrons of Republicans and are said to have spent more than $30 million so far in television ads and related attack material in a dozen or so races involving the most vulnerable Democrats.
Many of the attack ads take aim at President Obama’s health care reform law — high on the Kochs’ hit list — even using bogus information dispensed through their high-sounding Americans for Progress.
Koch money has been showing up all around the country, but especially in neighboring Louisiana where the Kochs are trying to toss Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu out of the Senate because she voted for the health care reform act. Earlier she won bipartisan support to restore $300 million in Medicaid funds for Louisiana that were slated to be cut.
Here’s how the Koch ads do their hatchet job: Paid actors posing as Louisiana citizens make out that they have received notices canceling their health policies because of Obamacare. That’s baloney, but how does the viewer know?
