The Koch Brothers Pledged $60 Million to Defeat Obama

Reuters
Eric Randall 10,813 Views Feb 3, 2012

David and Charles Koch, billionaire businessmen known for their donations to conservative causes, together pledged $60 million to defeat President Obama at a private California retreat for donors and strategists, reports the Huffington Post, attributing the information to an anonymous source who was in the room. The news that the brothers are committing money to defeating a president with whom they don't get along is not very surprising. After all, their lawyer wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday lamenting Obama's regular "attacks" on the brothers in his speeches, likening the treatment he gives them to Richard Nixon's enemies list, and saying they've been "selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team." So the Koch people really don't like Obama. But $60 million is a lot of money, and shows the kind of funding that a few people can put into a race with the advent of Super-PACs, where most of their money will probably go due to restrictions on donations to actual campaigns.

Details of exactly how and when they will dole out the funds are, of course, still unreported. But along with the $68 million Obama raised last quarter, this promises to be quite the moneyed campaign.

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