The writing is on the wall: The GOP will be an interventionist party in 2016

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Noah Rothman

January 28, 2015

 

The lively Republican presidential primary is only getting livelier. A fascinating development on the donor front could indicate which way the winds of fortune will blow for the prospective GOP candidates ahead of the early primary debates later this year.

 

Politico reporters Ken Vogel and Tarini Parti were recently privy to the results of a straw poll conducted among donors linked to the Koch network – a group that recently revealed plans to spend a mammoth $889 million sum on behalf of their favored Republican candidate in the coming election. As Politico noted, it is unclear if that hefty sum will benefit their candidate in the primaries, but having the backing of this powerful group of donors would only elevate the stature of the ultimate beneficiary even if every wallet remains closed until the nominating convention concludes.

 

Having the support of the famously libertarian Koch brothers and their donor network is a nonpareil asset. So far, the informal winner of the Koch donor primary is not, as many would have expected, fellow libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) but another freshman senator: Marco Rubio (R-FL).

 

(Snip)

 

If Rubio is emerging as a favorite of the GOP donor class, it’s not hard to see why. Surely not every member of the Koch donor network shares the brothers’ libertarian views on drug legalization, American retrenchment, entitlement and tax reform, and same-sex marriage rights. They are, nevertheless, representative of what the GOP’s non-establishment donor class is thinking. If this influential set of political contributors are already giving up on Paul, the prospective candidate who most closely mirrors the Koch brothers’ views on a variety of traditionally libertarian issues, it is due solely to the viability of his approach to foreign affairs.

 

(Snip)