Koch Brothers, Others Pledge $100 Million to Knock Off Obama

Watch as 2012 becomes the most moneyed presidential campaign on record.

Last quarter, President Barack Obama raised $68 million, unprecedented for a sitting president a full year before his re-election bid. Now David and Charles Koch, billionaire businessmen known for their donations to conservative causes, have together pledged $60 million to defeat Obama. Plus, their friends kicked in another $40 million.

Reports the Huffington Post, the Kochs and their conservative friends made their pledge last week at a private retreat for donors and strategists. Which shouldn't be too surprising to anybody, given the president's attacks on both Kochs in his speeches.

In fact, the brothers' lawyer wrote about those attacks in The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, likening the treatment Obama gives them to Richard Nixon's enemies list, and saying his clients have been "selected as an attractive political punching bag by the president's re-election team."

Nevertheless, $100 million is a lot of money. It shows how this tooth-and-nail fight is going to go with the advent of Super PACs.