Another big Election Day loser: The Democratic Party’s Koch obsession

In the months leading up to the midterm elections, outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and his allies hammered away relentlessly at the libertarian-leaning industrialists, claiming in speeches, interviews, radio and television ads and even from the floor of the U.S. Senate that the two private citizens have corrupted U.S. politics with “dark” money.

“What is un-American is when shadowy billionaires pour unlimited money into our democracy to rig the system,” Reid said in a March 4 Senate speech.

“I believe in an America where economic opportunity is open to all,” Reid said. “But based on their actions and the policies they promote, the Koch brothers seem to believe in an America where the system is rigged to benefit the very wealthy.”

Reid, who has attacked the brothers at least 250 times in roughly 22 speeches, has gone so far as to try to amend the U.S. Constitution so as to put strict limitations on how much people like the Koch brothers can spend to influence elections.

“According to Reid and his supporters, the Kochs are responsible for a list of evil ambitions that a comic book arch-villain would envy,” former Republican chief of staff David Hoppe said in September. “Among his most bizarre accusations are that the brothers support arson to burn down the West, are in favor of poverty, are trying to create a ‘Kochtopia,’ want to keep kids from affording college, are cult leaders, and are trying to increase healthcare costs.”

Of course, it should be noted that at the same time that Reid and his Democratic cohort attack two private citizens for their political contributions, the Democrats have cozied up to California billionaire Tom Steyer and his very generous political donations.

Further, prior to the Democrats’ suddenly seizing on the strategy of demonizing the billionaire brothers, they were also the happy recipients of Koch political contributions, according to Politico.

In any event, after so many TV ads and speeches by Democratic lawmakers assailing the brothers for injecting “dark” money into U.S. politics, Americans have no idea who the Kochs are, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The survey, which was conducted Oct. 8-15, found that 47 percent of U.S. voters have never heard of the Kochs.

More damning for Democrats is the fact that the October survey also found that only 27 percent of respondents held a negative view of the brothers, a slight increase from the 21 percent who said the same in April, while a much larger 39 percent said they had a negative opinion of Harry Reid.

It’s also telling that nearly all of the Democratic candidates who attacked the Koch name on the campaign trail went on to lose big in the November midterm elections.

Outgoing Sens. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, all tried to make the Kochs a campaign issue with voters, each accusing their challengers of being bought and paid for by the billionaire brothers. They all lost, some by large margins.

Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley originally a favorite for an open Senate seat in Iowa, also invoked the Kochs. He lost by eight points. Kentucky’s failed Democratic Senate candidate, Alison Lundergan Grimes, tried at one point to accuse incumbent Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., of being a Koch stooge. She lost by an astonishing 15.5 points.

In short, for all the time, energy and money Democrats spent on making Charles and David Koch a campaign issue, Americans simply weren’t moved and chose instead to send Reid’s allies packing.

Despite all this, and despite what appears to be a failed strategy, Reid and Senate Democrats are apparently committed to the attack and have no regrets for making the midterms about two obscure private citizens.

Here’s a tweet sent from the official Senate Democrats account one day after its disastrous Election Day performance:

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Some people just never learn.