KOCH WORLD APPARENTLY BELIEVES THE CHENEY-AS-KAMIKAZE HYPE

When I saw this, it worried me:

"The bear that Liz Cheney is now wrestling with is that of the Republican Party... Does she remain a Republican? Does she not? The Cheney lane of the Republican Party is a dead end electorally... there's no reclaiming the party" - @DavidJollyFL w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/Lgm0m34UfU

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) August 22, 2022

David Jolly is a Trump -bashing former Republican congressman whose Serve America Movement has now been merged into Andrew Yang's Forward Party. Jolly's speculation that Cheney might run for president in 2024 as an independent -- he doesn't say so, but I imagine the Forward Party would love to sign her up as a candidate -- led me to worry that this has become her plan, which would be a disaster because she'd take moderate votes from the Democrats and take very few votes from the Republicans. That might guarantee Donald Trump's election.

But a story from CNBC suggests to me that she has high-priced benefactors who believe she could really pull off a kamikaze mission in the GOP primaries.

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has amassed a group of political consultants with ties to ... the expansive Koch network as she mulls a run for the White House after losing in the GOP primary for her Wyoming House seat....

Billionaire and conservative political backer Charles Koch is helping Cheney through i360, a data and technology company owned by his conglomerate, Koch Industries, according to financial database PitchBook and Federal Election Commission filings.

The filing shows two PACs, Conservatives for a Strong America and Wyomingites Defending Freedom and Democracy, paid i360 to help deploy pro-Cheney ads through text messages....

A nonprofit partially funded by Charles Koch, Americans for Prosperity, paid $11 million to i360 for data services, according to the nonprofit’s 2020 tax disclosure.

What does the Koch network want? Republican governance forever. But not just with any Republican president -- as the story notes, relations between Koch World and Trump aren't good. Trump is too flaky and self-obsessed to be the methodical advocate for the plutocracy the Koch network wants. So I assume Team Koch is helping Cheney in the hope that the mainstream media is right and she really can take down Trump in the primaries, in order to clear the field for Ron DeSantis or some other Republican who'll be more electable, and who'll work tirelessly as president to make the rich richer.

Yes, the mainstream media also (foolishly) believes that a general-election third-party campaign by Cheney could take down Trump if he's the nominee because Cheney's a Republican and is sure to take Republican votes from Trump. But even if Koch World is naive enough to believe that, the result would be a victory by (shudder!) the Democrats. That's not acceptable in Koch World.

So I suspect Cheney's plan is to run in the Republican primaries. She won't take down Trump -- her attacks could actually make him more popular with the GOP base -- but if this is her strategy, then at least she won't be helping Trump win in November.