For more on David Koch see, http://www.potomac-inc.org/seduclft.html And, as an aside, the new TNR http://www.thenewrepublic.com/050701/nagel050701.html has Thomas Nagel, reviewing the Ray Monk bio of Bertrand Russell.
Michael Pugliese
Libertarians don't like to talk about how David Koch came to be their party's vice-presidential nominee, and you can't blame them. To be blunt about it, Koch bought the nomination; it cost him a half-million dollars. There is no law against selling a slot on the national ticket to the highest bidder, and in the Libertarians' case , it made a good deal of financial sense. Still, it's not the kind of thing they like to talk about. "I was disturbed by it," admits Robert Poole, editor of Reason, a California magazine that is the voice of the Libertarian movement's right wind. Several weeks before the Libertarian party staged its national convention in Los Angeles last September, David Koch sent a letter to the delegates announcing that he would contribute several hundred thousand dollars to the 1890 campaign if he were nominated. In Los Angeles he upped the ante to a half-million. "David Koch has not been active in the party, "concedes Poole, "But everyone made the calculations, and they were explicit about it in their speeches, He was a Libertarian, he agreed with us, he was offering money we couldn't otherwise get.." (Federal campaign laws limit the amount individual may contribute to a presidential campaign, but places no restrictions on a candidate's spending in his own race.) The vote was never in doubt. "There was no good reason not to nominate him," Poole said.
Koch's name is not a household word, not even to the delegates who voted for him, and if he has his way, it won't become one any time soon: he is conducting what one prominent Libertarian calls a "front porch campaign." But the party did not sell its nomination to a total stranger, David Koch, 39, head of Koch Engineering, is the brother of Charles Koch, 44, chairperson and chief executive officer of Koch Industries. Charles Koch is also the Friedrich Engels of Libertarianism. More than any other single factor, it is his money that has transformed the Libertarian movement from a doughty band of true believers into a political force that is on the verge of becoming the first party since the Socialists to offer a serious challenge to the "Republocrat" monopoly.
You have probably never heard of the Libertarian party, but thanks to Koch's money, that will have changed by the end of the election campaign. The party's presidential candidate, Ed Clark, is a 49-year old antitrust lawyer for the Atlantic-Richfield oil company, with be on the ballot in some 4-odd states, and his campaign strategists are hoping to raise $3 million to buy newspapers, radio and television ads in major media markets, including 60 five-minute spots on network TV. The Libertarians' message will be a simple one: the only way to solve the nation's problems is to get rid of government.
<snip>