Steve Kornacki: How David Koch Tried to Derail the Reagan Revolution
[Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor.]
Toward the end of what seems to be (but maybe isn't!) a secretly recorded phone conversation with a blogger pretending to be David Koch, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talks of gathering his Cabinet several weeks ago, pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and likening the push to deny public sector workers collective bargaining rights to the Gipper's 1981 decision to fire striking air traffic controllers.
It was, the governor says, "one of the defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency."
There's some irony here.
Sure, Walker (probably) had no idea he was talking to an impersonator, but the simple fact that someone claiming to be David Koch could (apparently) reach him with such ease speaks to the stature Koch -- a billionaire tycoon who has been called "the Tea Party's wallet" -- now enjoys on the right. And to conservatives like Walker, Reagan is now regarded with god-like reverence. What Walker may not remember, though, is that the same David Koch he thought he was speaking with actually tried to derail the Reagan Revolution....
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Toward the end of what seems to be (but maybe isn't!) a secretly recorded phone conversation with a blogger pretending to be David Koch, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talks of gathering his Cabinet several weeks ago, pulling out a picture of Ronald Reagan, and likening the push to deny public sector workers collective bargaining rights to the Gipper's 1981 decision to fire striking air traffic controllers.
It was, the governor says, "one of the defining moments of his political career, not just his presidency."
There's some irony here.
Sure, Walker (probably) had no idea he was talking to an impersonator, but the simple fact that someone claiming to be David Koch could (apparently) reach him with such ease speaks to the stature Koch -- a billionaire tycoon who has been called "the Tea Party's wallet" -- now enjoys on the right. And to conservatives like Walker, Reagan is now regarded with god-like reverence. What Walker may not remember, though, is that the same David Koch he thought he was speaking with actually tried to derail the Reagan Revolution....