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 |  Subject: Funny: How Billionaire David Koch Escaped 'Occupy The Koch Brothers' Protest Unscathed  Sat Nov 26, 2011 2:25 am | |
| David Koch is the 4th richest person in the country, with a fortune of $25 billion. His older brother Charles has another $25 billion to his name, thanks to their hugely profitable industrial conglomerate Koch Industries.
Over the past few years, the two have earned a reputation as bankrollers of the American right, and their influence on politics has come under increased scrutiny. So this past weekend, when David Koch arrived at a Washington, D.C. convention center for a high-profile Republican summit, it’s no great surprise that protesters followed.
New York-based David had a front row seat at the conservative Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s two-day conference (he’s the group’s founder and chairman). He provoked riotous applause during 2012 hopeful Herman Cain’s keynote address on Friday afternoon: Cain, a one-time AFP employee, called the Kochs his “brothers from another mother”; David responded by fist-pumping and jumping to his feet.
Outside the convention center, as the evening drew in, protesters from various Occupy movements and liberal nonprofits gathered to stand up against David Koch and his brother Charles’ influence on the political agenda.
As I detailed in a Forbes.com story on Saturday, the rally started out peacefully but took an ugly turn about an hour in. Protesters blocked the doors of the DC Convention Center while guests finished a ‘Tribute to Ronald Reagan’ dinner, banging on the glass walls and causing scuffles at the exits. One attendee, 78-year-old Dolores Broderick, was knocked down a flight of stairs and hit her head.
As the atmosphere worsened, I wondered: If a grandmother attending on a $169 ticket couldn’t leave without being shoved over and requiring an ambulance, how could the super-rich target of the protesters’ ire get out in one piece? David Koch’s face was projected on the side of the convention center at the start of the rally. His name was a lyric in a protest song I could hear intermittently over the din of the crowd.
As the dinner ended and guests fought their way out of the center through a booing blockade, I kept my eyes peeled for David Koch. I asked protesters if they’d seen him. I asked AFP staffers if he had a secret means of exiting — through an underground garage, perhaps? No one knew a thing, or at least they weren’t talking.
Since Saturday, dinner guests have called and emailed to tell me that David Koch left in the most conspicuous manner possible: through the front door. He walked out of the main Mt Vernon St convention center exit, across the park at Mt Vernon Square, and back to his hotel. He went essentially unnoticed.
“He left at about 9:15pm, right after the dinner ended,” one attendee, a conservative political consultant, told Forbes. “The doors were barricaded, and his hotel was across the park. He said, ‘I’m not putting up with this, I’m going back to my hotel.’”
The fellow guest, who left right behind Koch’s group, said the billionaire industrialist seemed to go mostly unrecognized. “Most had no idea who he was, and were busy banging on the windows,” he said. David Koch had a team of six people around him, said an eyewitness, including friends and security protection. He always travels with security.
“He walked out the door, through the protesters,” said the consultant. “It was literally a normal walk. I think some people did recognize him, but those who did weren’t sure what to do about it.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2011/11/08/how-david-koch-escaped-occupy-the-koch-brothers-protest-unscathed/ |
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