Libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch are two of the most maligned figures in American politics. Shrewd Democratic strategists are convinced that Koch bashing is winning political strategy in 2014, just as it was in 2010, when Democrats lost independent voters by 15 points.
It’s a good fundraising strategy, at least, because every enlightened liberal knows that the power-mad Kochtopus is destroying America, and giving money to Democratic politicians is the only way to stop it—that and protesting outside a New York City hospital that is building a new ambulatory care center with the help of a $100 million donation from David Koch.
Regular voters, on the other hand, seem insufficiently concerned about the integrity of our democracy. In fact, most of them have never even heard of the Koch brothers:
After absorbing millions of dollars in outside spending from groups connected to the Koch brothers, congressional Democrats have made the conservative billionaires the star villains in a messaging counteroffensive. But a new nonpartisan poll highlights a problem with the plan: A majority of likely 2014 voters have never even heard of the Kochs.
A 52 percent majority of respondents in the new George Washington University Battleground Poll said they had never heard of the Koch brothers, with an additional 11 percent saying they had no opinion of the conservative industrialists. Of the small slice who registered an opinion of the Kochs, 12 percent viewed them favorably and 25 percent viewed them unfavorably. The survey is one of the first to test opinions about the Kochs since they became a big subject of political conversation in the last few years.
Meanwhile, that same poll found that voters oppose Obamacare by a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent. Probably best not to focus on those numbers, however, because Koch brothers.