QOTD: Politico's Mike Allen
by digby
Look who's going to the Koch brothers' auditions for President of the United States of Koch?
DRIVING THE WEEKEND: I'll interview five of the Republican candidates - Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker -- for 25 minutes each in my native Orange County, Calif., at the biannual conference of Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the Koch brothers' political network. We have complete editorial control of the questions, and the policy discussions will be livestreamed.
No, there's nothing inappropriate about this, why do you ask? Allen is simply doing the tough shoe leather work of a political journalist by helping the Koch brothers decide which candidate's campaign they plan to pour a hundred million or more into. It's perfectly fine.
Four leading GOP presidential candidates – Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker – are traveling to a Southern California luxury hotel in coming days to make their cases directly to the Koch brothers and hundreds of other wealthy conservatives planning to spend close to $1 billion in the run-up to the 2016 election.
The gathering – which also will include former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, but notably not Sen. Rand Paul — is hosted by Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the umbrella group in the Kochs’ increasingly influential network of political and public policy outfits. It represents a major opportunity for the candidates at a pivotal moment in the presidential primary.
The crowded field of GOP contenders is competing aggressively for the support of uncommitted mega-donors as the campaign hurtles towards its first debates in what’s expected to be a long and costly battle for the Republican nomination.
Freedom Partners’ annual summer conference is set for August 1 through August 3, and is expected to draw 450 of the biggest financiers of the right for sessions about the fiscally conservative policies and politics that animate the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch and many of the donors in their network. Most have the capability to write seven- or even eight-figure checks to the super PACs fueling the GOP presidential primary, and a significant proportion have yet to settle on a 2016 choice, or are considering supporting multiple candidates. That includes Charles and David Koch, as well as Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and hedge fund billionaires Paul Singer, both of whom will be represented at the conference by advisers, and a number of other attendees of past conferences whose 2016 leanings are being closely watched.
Mike Allen is no longer a journalist. He's a pimp.
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