Tuesday was a happy day for the Koch Bros., the billionaires whose Americans for Prosperity organization has spent millions around the country to elect Republican legislative majorities, including in Arkansas.
The AFP distributed a news relese about their “non-partisan” triumph yesterday. The news release doesn’t mention the subsidized gasoline the AFP purchased for all comers in what appeared to be in-kind campaign donations to Republican candidates who made appearances at the gas giveaways.
They’ll be calling a lot of shots in the Republican legislature. But not as many as they had planned. And it might be time to reconsider the influence of AFP and boss Teresa Oelke.
UPDATE: Michael Cook, a Democratic political analyst and writer for Talk Business, makes the case that the Koch crowing is a coverup for their pitiful showing in the Arkansas election.
By Cook’s analysis, the Koch/AFP effort lost 20 (TWENTY!) Arkansas races it targeted with expenditures such as mass mailing, bus tour stops and the like. I think he’s onto something important here. All that spending. All that effort. All that talk. And they wind up with a ONE-SEAT edge in the House? Cook, who notes that the partisan divide remains narrower here than in any Southern state, names names that AFP tried but failed to elect.
The AFP release follows: