on voter attitudes. The presentation included “top line” figures, showing broad voter attitudes that were accompanied by several “cross tabs” of detailed data that broke down the results by demographic group. As the operative was presenting his findings to Charles Koch and other directors of the company, Koch interrupted to question them about the data.
Charles Koch asked about figures in the cross tables. He wanted to know why women in one geographic area felt the way they felt. The operative was shocked at the level of granular knowledge behind the question. Charles Koch was paying just as close attention to his political efforts as his corporate endeavors.
It seemed even more surprising that Charles Koch could keep all of these political operations straight in his own head. The contours of Koch’s political machine were intentionally obscured and complex. Outside analysts would spend years trying to piece together all of its various pieces. The political machine consisted of at least dozens of shell groups funded by anonymous donors, some of them staffed by current and former employees of Koch Industries. The network included the main lobbying office in Washington, DC; all of the contract lobbyists it hired; a relatively obscure activist group called Americans for Prosperity with chapters in several states; at least several private political consultancies; the Koch Industries corporate PAC; various think tanks; academic programs and fellowships; and a consortium of wealthy donors that Charles and David Koch convened twice a year to pool large donations for Koch’s chosen causes. And these elements were just the most visible pieces of the Koch political machine.
The entirety of the political apparatus could only be viewed from the top, by a handful of people with the authority to see the entire operation. These people were Charles Koch, David Koch, and their top political operative, Richard Fink. Of the three of them, Charles Koch unquestionably had the most authority. It was Charles Koch, then, who had the most influence over how this political machine would react to the surprising momentum behind the Waxman-Markey bill. His reaction might have been unsurprising to anyone who knew him well. Charles Koch had been unyielding in his years-long legal battle against his brother Bill. He had been unyielding in his battles with relatives and shareholders who wanted to take the company public. He had been unyielding in his battle against labor unions. He was unyielding now.
Koch’s political machine was deployed, in 2009, in ways that it had never been deployed before. Millions of new dollars would flow into a new political network at the state level. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of new activists would be brought on board. New attack campaigns were launched. New political candidates were chosen and supported.
In the fight that Charles Koch was about to wage, there would be no compromise. There would be no effort to amend the Waxman-Markey bill or win subsidies through the emission allotments. There would be no effort to suggest an alternative path to lower carbon emissions, such as a carbon tax. There would not even be an acknowledgment that climate change was real.
The central strategy would remain the same as the one conveyed in Koch’s lobbying office earlier in the summer. The primary target of Koch’s campaign would be Republicans who supported the Waxman-Markey bill, and any Republicans who stood against Koch on the issue of climate change.
These Republicans were the primary targets for a reason. Koch’s long-term plan was to reshape the Republican party, and these members would be made an example of. The strategy wasn’t necessarily new, but the means that Koch used to pursue it were unprecedented.
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After the Waxman-Markey bill passed, Phillips and the other members of the Global Warming Committee handed off most of their work to their colleagues in the Senate. Congress was called into recess for the Fourth of July break, and members went back to their districts for the annual tradition of constituent meetings and parades.
During the holiday recess, the Global Warming Committee’s communications director, Jeff Sharp, kept working, monitoring media reports about the Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate would pick up debate of the measure in the fall, and Sharp wanted to stay on top of the story in the meantime. Over the Fourth of July holiday, Sharp started getting some disturbing phone calls and e-mails. There were protests. And the protests were remarkable. Protestors were standing along parade routes, on Independence Day, waving placards and shouting at the members of Congress as they passed by. Sharp couldn’t remember anything like