David Hamilton Koch, May 3, 1940 (Wichita, Kan.) – August 23, 2019 (Southampton, NY)
VP candidate for Libertarian Party (aka Independent aka Free Libertarian Party) (1980)
Running mate with nominee: Edward E. Clark (b. 1930)
Popular vote: 921,128 (1.06%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
In 1980 the polarizing term "Koch Brothers" and what that represented had yet to really become part of the American lexicon. David Koch himself, the Libertarian Party running-mate with Ed Clark in that year, was learning a lesson in electoral politics the hard way.
Born into oil refinery wealth, Koch lived up to his middle name of Hamilton when in a 1974 speech he declared, "The development of a well-financed cadre of sound proponents of the free enterprise philosophy is the most critical need facing us today."
As we have seen in several cases, the size of the candidate's bank account is frequently more important than their experience or credentials when it comes to gaining the second spot on the ticket. In Aug. 1979 Koch announced his availability for the VP nomination in a very unsubtle way: "As the Vice-presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party I will contribute several hundred thousand dollars to the Presidential campaign committee in order to ensure that our ideas and our Presidential nominee receive as much media exposure as possible." It seems he actually kicked in more than two million dollars.
I remember being impressed that as a third party the Libertarians actually had television advertisements in 1980. I also remember those ads looked low-budget, were badly produced, and very hokey. Koch's investment was poorly spent in this regard.
The long 1980 platform included: repeal of and pardons for what they considered victimless crimes such as drug use, prostitution, suicide -- pro-Gay rights -- repeal of all laws permitting involuntary psychiatric treatment -- An end to criminal defenses based on "insanity" or "diminished capacity" which absolve the guilty of their responsibility -- opposition to all forms of government censorship and media regulation including anti-pornography laws -- no government sponsored media such as NPR -- an end to the taxation of private owned real property -- oppose the issuance by the government of an identity card, to be required for any purpose, such as for employment, voting, or border crossings -- abolition of the CIA and FBI -- pro-guns -- anti-draft -- anti-national service programs -- Members of the military should have the same right to quit their jobs as other persons -- abolition of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, and a declaration of full amnesty for those people who have entered the country illegally. We oppose government welfare payments to non-citizens just as we oppose government welfare payments to all other persons. We welcome Indochinese and other refugees to our shores, and condemn the efforts of U.S. government officials to induce Indochinese governments to create a new "Berlin wall" that would keep them captive -- oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes -- abolition of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, The National Banking System, and all similar state and federal agencies -- termination of government-created franchise privileges and governmental monopolies for such services as garbage collection, fire protection, electricity, natural gas, telephone, or water supplies. Furthermore, all rate regulation in these industries should be abolished -- repeal of all federal and state controls over price and output in the petroleum industry. All government owned energy resources should be turned over to private ownership -- abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission -- abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration -- abolition of the Food and Drug Administration -- government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended -- dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Federal Maritime Commission, Conrail and Amtrak -- repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act -- Social Security should be made voluntary -- abolition of the governmental Postal Service -- abolition of the Civil Service system -- abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs -- abolition of the "despotic" Federal Election Commission -- In order to expand the range of choice in federal, state and local elections of government officials, we propose the addition of the alternative "None of the above is acceptable" to all ballots. In the event that "none of the above" wins a plurality of votes, the elective office for that term will remain unfilled and unfunded -- withdrawal from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund -- withdrawal of all American troops from bases abroad, and NATO, and the UN, and cease the Monroe Doctrine -- reform of the Presidential War Powers Act to end the President's power to initiate military action, and for the abrogation of all Presidential declarations of "states of emergency" -- immediate independence for all colonial dependencies, such as Samoa, Guam, Micronesia, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
Needless to say, eliminating that pesky Dept. of Energy was one of Koch's favorite topics.
After reading that partial list of issues we have to remind ourselves that Clark and Koch were considered moderates within the Party. For those in the traditional dualism mindset of American politics, there was something in there to offend everyone. The civil liberties portion of this platform horrified the evangelicals. And the economic and deregulating half alienated the Left.
During the campaign Koch Industries had been subpoenaed in an investigation regarding fraudulent gas and oil leases in Wyoming, which would have made one wonder about Koch's Libertarian motives if anyone had been paying attention. Using Koch as an example, it would be easy to assume the Libertarian Party was more about the wealthy perpetuating the economic class and social sense of entitlement in order to keep their huge fortunes and maintain the Darwinian Ayn Rand romantic notions of elitism than it was to think of the LP being a champion of individualism and personal liberty. A populist party this was not.
A portion of the Party resented Koch's presence and felt he was buying his way into the power structure of their group, which he in fact was doing. Koch himself enjoyed campaigning but was about to realize a hard fall. Lulled into a confident state by meeting only supporters during the campaign, he was surprised when the Party did not enjoy a higher national vote. Then as the LP drifted increasingly into the hardcore camp, Koch crossed over to the Republican Party by 1984, taking his billions with him.
The Koch Brothers bring to mind the lines uttered by Ned Beatty in his role as the television executive Arthur Jensen in the 1976 film Network. Jensen is lecturing one of his newscasters (Howard Beale played by Peter Finch) who had foiled an international commercial transaction through the power of his presence on TV:
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.
One senses that Koch's brand of libertarianism could care less about the civil liberties aspects of the party and instead was utterly embroiled with the all-about-the-monetary-profit aspects. I detected no great passion there on the civil side. His heart was with laissez-faire economics.
It is intriguing that the Koch Brothers supported an increasingly social unlibertarian Republican Party until Trump came along, partly due to the protectionist trade and tariff policies which hurt Koch profit margins.
In 1980 David Koch learned the limits of third party idealistic elective politics and after that went full speed into the much more effective role of being a guy behind the curtain pulling the strings for many years of the major parties in the world of dirty practical politics. The Libertarian Party itself took a more hardcore stance after Clark/Koch, demanding more philosophical purity from their candidates in the next election. By that time Koch would no longer be in the Party.
The Libertarians had a strong popular vote for a still fairly new third party. They had a national result of 4th place at 1.06%-- a percentage for the Party that would not be surpassed until 2016. On the ballot in all 50 states and DC, their most impressive finish was in Alaska with 11.66%, the only state where they placed 3rd. The remainder of their most enthusiastic percentages came from the Far West: Montana 2.70%, Wyoming 2.55%, Oregon 2.19%, Colorado 2.17%, Arizona 2.15%, Idaho 1.93%, Nevada 1.76%, California 1.73%, and Washington 1.68%.
Election history: none.
Other occupations: obscenely rich guy
Buried: ?
Notes:
Full disclosure/confession: I voted for this ticket in 1980 as a protest.
