By the look of it, senior staff at Koch front groups and business entities are running a full-blown pro-Rubio rapid response operation, pushing back on other candidates attacks and scrambling come up with something — anything — that the junior senator from Florida can claim as an “accomplishment.”

Here’s another indication that the Kochs are really feeling Rubio: Representatives from the pro-Rubio super PAC, Conservative Solutions PAC, last weekend held “private meetings” with Koch network donors at Charles and David’s winter conference, according to the New York Times.​

Right on cue, Koch-backed groups are doing their best to promote Rubio’s candidacy. A senior fellow at the Koch-supported Cato Institute last week penned an op-ed for National Review in which he praises Rubio’s right-wing positions on social issues, as well as his tax plan that disproportionately benefits billionaires like the Kochs and his plans to raise the retirement age and narrow retirees’ eligibility for earned benefits. The LIBRE Initiative’s Daniel Garza, who defends Rubio’s robotic repetitions in a tweet included above, has in the last few weeks credited Rubio as “reflective of the Latino community” and expressed his belief that Rubio “could get real, sensible, permanent immigration reform passed.”

Most compelling, is the above tweet from Ken Spain, who runs Koch Industries’ communications operation and is arguably most representative of the Kochs’ own views. Rather than defend Rubio’s lack of accomplishments or his reliance on canned talking points, Spain lashes out at Bush and Christie, calling their attacks on Rubio “sad.”