August 31, 2012 11:09 PM UTC

Koch not entirely on board with platform

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• by: Tom

In an interview with Politico, David Koch told the reporter that he supported gay marriage and some tax increases. Koch and his brother are both massive donors to the Romney campaign as well as to outside Tea Party affiliated groups.

This seems to me to show the contrast between Republican and Democratic fundraising. Republicans view political donations as an investment. The big money flows for GOP candidates when they seem to offer a good return on investment. In Koch’s case, a commitment to deregulation and especially to fossil fuel dependence is enough. Any repugnant social posturing needed to woo the base is nothing more than a means to ensure election. Personal beliefs aside, the bottom line is most important.

Democrats on the other hand tend to view politics as street theater. We toss some cash in when the hat gets passed around if the candidate’s message matches our values. Style points are important. Some candidates follow the pragmatic route and kowtow to the investor class and rightly get called out for selling out their principles- or at least ours.

Progressives are stuck in that we are left with charismatic candidates that are constantly on the verge of being captured by pragmatic money looking to subvert a progressive agenda. Conservatives don’t have that problem. They can do whatever they want in order to get elected. The money follows the policy and conservative candidates are fully on board with the big money agenda.

In an era in which money is often the deciding factor in elections, how do progressives elect candidates that will honestly represent progressive values? We’ve tried pragmatism in the past and it bit us in the ass– the financial sector made some great investments while we were focused on foreign policy, social issues, and the environment.

I see two possibilities. We can try to be clever and pragmatic. This gets us Blue Dogs. This gets us people like Joe Lieberman that are “with us on everything but the war.” We can win some narrow victories with this sort of tactic. Generally, I see this as a defensive action in which we hold onto important programs like social security and medicare, protect abortion rights, and hold the line against social conservatives on some issues.

The second possibility that I hope we’ll see is a greater alignment of big money with our agenda. Stable financial markets, sustainable energy development, productive foreign policy, a respect for human rights- all seem like they would bode well for long-term prosperity. As more businesses and people begin to take a long view, progressive values may become worthwhile to the bottom line and conservatives will be the ones fighting for campaign finance reform.

Politico link:

http://www.politico.com/news/s…