THINGS GO BETTER FOR KOCHS: Candidates must pledge not to raise rich peoples taxes to get AFP support.

  • THINGS GO BETTER FOR KOCHS: Candidates must pledge not to raise rich people’s taxes to get AFP support.

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.

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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.

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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.

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The AFP release follows:

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