The Koch brothers' model Senator
by digby
Over at Salon this morning I wrote about the original Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. He's quite the multi-tasker:
[W]hat to make of his scolding the people who put him in office at last week’s Republican Leadership Conference?
“I think the conservative movement may just be maturing a little bit. You can be very doctrinaire, you can demand purity, but in the end if you want to advance policy that you want enacted you have to win elections,” Johnson said when asked about a recent spate of Tea Party losses around the country.
“I value the membership of the Tea Party movement. I am right there with them ideologically, I mean, ‘Taxed Enough Already.’ But the groups don’t necessarily represent all of the individuals in the movement. I think the individuals are now realizing they may have been led astray by an individual group or two and they really do understand that they have to win elections,” he said, adding, “My guess is the Tea Party grassroots are maybe a little more flexible.”
He went on to point out that he just “went to a few Tea Party rallies” back in 2010 but that he “never joined a group.” Only four years in Washington and he’s already lost his fire.
But what “groups” do you suppose he’s talking about when he says there’s a difference between the grass roots and the “groups”? Here’s a picture of Johnson at one of the Tea Party rallies back in 2010. In it, he’s standing at a podium that says “I am AFP.” What’s AFP? Well, it’s Wisconsin’s favorite Tea Party group, Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers’ personal super PAC. Surely he isn’t talking about them. It must be some other Tea Party group leading the flexible grass roots astray. After all, according to Ken Vogel at Politico, Sen. Johnson remains very close to the Randroid Brothers, so much so that he’s referred to as the Kochs’ “model senator.”
Vogel attended a Koch brothers retreat and listened in as Johnson tried to calm down a major conservative donor who was ragging on the Republican National Committee, complaining that they didn’t know what they were doing. Johnson agreed that the money might be better spent with the Kochs on this fellow’s particular issue, but did defend poor Reince Priebus as a good guy whose heart was in the right place. When Vogel stepped in to ask some questions, Johnson jumped up complaining of the heat and ran inside.
I've never thought Johnson was the sharpest tool in the shed. And they seem to be asking him to operate with a little bit more finesse than he's capable of. But I guess he's the best they've got.
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