A number of (Mike) Pence’s former staffers from his days in Congress have assumed major roles in the (Koch) brothers’ corporate and political spheres. And Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs’ top political group, has been holding up Pence’s work in Indiana as emblematic of a conservative reform agenda they’re trying to take nationwide.

For Pence, Koch World offers entrée and credibility with major donors whose views on social issues skew less conservative than his own, and who don’t know him as well as they know some of the other potential hopefuls. It would be a huge psychic boost if he were perceived to have even unofficial support from a vast network of advocacy groups and companies that spent more than $400 million in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election and is among the most robust forces in politics today.

“Indiana is one big free market, [and] much like Koch Industries, Mike Pence … picks the right fights,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist who has polled for Pence and at least one Koch-backed group. “He doesn’t pick a fight for fighting’s sake, but he engages on the front lines when it’s a matter of principle or when something of great consequence is on the line,” said Conway, who also has appeared at Americans for Prosperity events.

A former talk show host who led a crusade to defund Planned Parenthood in the House, Pence has worked to spotlight the fiscal issues that animate the Kochs’ political giving. People close to the brothers say he first earned their network’s admiration during the George W. Bush years, when he opposed what he deemed Big Government policies backed by his own party, including No Child Left Behind and a Medicare expansion, and repeatedly warned that the GOP was veering off course.

“There’s ideological alignment between those two universes,” said Matt Mackowiak, a Texas GOP consultant who was hired years ago to work as press secretary for former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) by Marc Short, who was then her chief of staff. Short went on to become Pence’s chief of staff in late 2008 and now runs the Kochs’ political umbrella group Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce. “They wouldn’t have plucked Marc out of that world if they didn’t have confidence in not only Marc, but also Pence, who occupies a unique place in conservative politics right now,” said Mackowiak, who considers Short a mentor and still talks to him.

“The whole Koch operation has become the shadow headquarters of Pence for President,” asserted a strategist with close ties to GOP congressional leadership and to Koch organizations.

there are few other Republican politicians with as many highly placed allies working in key positions in the Kochs’ political network. That’s at least partly because the Koch universe in some ways sees itself as distinct from traditional partisan politics and until recently did much of its hiring from the advocacy or think tank sectors.

(Marc) Short’s significance in Koch World cannot be overstated. In late 2008, he left Hutchison’s office to become chief of staff to Pence when the congressman was taking control of the House Republican Conference, and Short burnished his reputation on the Hill as a behind-the-scenes powerhouse and a fierce advocate for Pence.


In 2011, after Pence decided to run for Indiana governor, Short was brought on to run a new umbrella group in Koch World, which ultimately became Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce.

The Pence influence extends to the Washington office of the brothers’ multinational industrial conglomerate Koch Industries. This summer, it snatched up Matt Lloyd, a longtime Pence spokesman who had gone on to work as chief of staff for fellow Indiana Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman.

The Koch machine has gotten behind Pence’s governorship, and Pence headlined a June fundraiser for the New York state Republican Party sponsored by David Koch. He and his brother Charles gave Pence $200,000 for his 2012 governor’s race.

And, once he was in office and began pushing a major income tax cut, Americans for Prosperity rallied support for it and privately took credit for helping pass it into law.

“Throughout the four-month legislative session, AFP launched a series of ads at key inflection points to draw public attention to GOP efforts to block Gov. Pence’s tax cut,” read a March briefing memo to major AFP donors, which was obtained by POLITICO. “Each blitz included targeted TV, radio, and web banner ads in key districts, with an emphasis in the Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Lafayette markets,” continued the memo, which focused on the group’s work on behalf of Pence in Indiana as a case study of its “transformational Model States Program.”

It included a quote from Pence calling AFP “the nation’s most effective grassroots organization of citizens that works to promote the ideals of limited government and economic freedom.”[]