This time it’s for real. David Koch, who was impersonated by a phony phonecaller in a conversation with Scott Walker, is standing by the Wisconsin governor.
"We're helping him, as we should. We've gotten pretty good at this over the years," he told the Palm Beach Post over the weekend. "We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more."
According to the Wisconsin Democracy Project, the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, along with another group, spent $1.1 million on three TV ads for Walker in the fall and spent an additional $700,000 earlier this month on another ad buy.
Koch, the fourth wealthiest man in America along with his brother, bluntly explained his rationale:
“What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important. He's an impressive guy and he's very courageous," Koch says after a benefit dinner of salmon and white wine. "If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power."
His comments echoed the made-up ones his impersonator, Ian Murphy, used in the infamous prank call last year.
After Walker said he was ratcheting up the heat and laying off more public sector workers, Murphy, claiming to be Koch, said: “Beautiful, beautiful. Gotta crush that union.”
If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story “Santorum’s Backwardness."
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