An inspiration to all participation award recipients everywhere, Marco Rubio — who, remember, has yet to win a single state and won a mere 9 delegates to Donald Trump’s 68 — is teaming up with Charles and David Koch to bring their selfish agenda to the White House.

In the latest sign that the Kochs — like RNC Reince Priebus and the rest of the GOP establishment — are getting seriously nervous about Donald Trump, Politico reports that Marc Short, “the Koch brothers’ top political adviser in Washington and a trusted member of their inner circle for five years,” is jumping aboard Marco Rubio’s expectations-mangling presidential campaign.

Short’s Team Marco migration is a serious indication that Rubio’s surging ahead in the Koch Primary. But that’s hardly a surprise — there have for months been indications that Rubio’s a Koch favorite.

In the last weeks alone, we’ve seen Koch operatives jump to Rubio’s defense on social media, as […]

Koch World is going crazy shilling for — and defending — Marco Rubio. Here are a few recent examples:

Executive Director at the LIBRE Initiative defends the Rubio Talking Point 3000. 

President at Americans For Prosperity attacks Christie for criticizing Rubio.

​Head of Corporate Communications at Koch Industries criticizes Bush and Christie for attacking Rubio.

A Concerned Veterans For America VP defends Rubio’s “record.”

 

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 […]

The New York Times this weekend reported on the billion-dollar hedge fund and Koch brothers-led lobbying campaign to prevent Puerto Rico from receiving fair access to Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Included in the story was a detail on Marco Rubio’s abandonment of legislation that would’ve given Puerto Rico fair treatment under the law — by the sound of it, he just walked away.

Rubio came out publicly against fair access for Puerto Rico back in September, but this weekend’s Times story got the Tampa Bay Times — and us — wondering: “Why did Marco Rubio back away from the bill to help Puerto Rico?”

It’s safe to say that his hedge fund backers and Charles and David Koch have something to do with it.

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Today, a new report claims Marco Rubio could be the new “front-runner” for the billionaire brothers’ “big prize,” a piece of the nearly $1 billion they’ve promised to spend on the 2016 election.

 

From the New York Daily News:

 

According to a political insider who ran into David Koch at a recent event in Manhattan, Florida Sen. Rubio is the front-runner for [the Kochs’] dough now that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is out of the race….We’re also told that Koch had nothing but nice things to say about Rubio, with whom he agrees on “most of the substantial issues.”

 

We’re sure Marco Rubio is jumping for joy that David Koch has finally noticed that on “most of the substantial issues,” Rubio is willing to toe the Koch line.

 

For months, Rubio has taken every available opportunity to show his deep allegiance to the Kochs’ “libertarian” causes in hopes they’ll spend big on his campaign. […]

The Koch brothers aren’t slowing down thier efforts to get out the Republican vote — even if that means helping elect Donald Trump. Earlier this week, the Koch political machine tried to make it seem like they are slowing down their election spending, a laughable claim.

The truth is that the Kochs haven’t stopped spending because of Trump at all — they’re even making up for his campaign’s deficits. In August, the Kochs had already poured millions into protectingvulnerable GOP senators and candidates in Florida, Indiana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to name a few. Now, they’re ramping up their ground game, “spending $250 million” this year and focusing on “get-out-the-vote efforts targeting 5 million” voters.

The Kochs can claim that they don’t like Trump, but as long as they’re spending millions to elect Republicans and making up for his disastrous ground-game, they are key players in the Party of Trump. […]

In 2014, the Kochs’ political machine helped propel a then-unknown state senator to victory in the Iowa Senate race — Joni Ernst. The billionaires saw something in Ernst that convinced them she should be their newest puppet in the U.S. Senate. Now, it looks like the Kochs have turned their attention to another competitive senate race, this time in Florida.

With Marco Rubio’s presidential fate still undecided, the Kochs are faced with losing one of their best shills in the Senate. So it’s no surprise that over the weekend Ron DeSantis won an invite to the Koch donor conference:

With such a crowded Republican field in the race to replace Rubio, it’s too soon to know how things will shake out. The Kochs have placed their bets and are clearly planning to run their 2014 Iowa playbook. But voters would do well to remember — no […]