Earlier today, a fellow Kossack passed along what I consider to be a very valuable bit of information: Namely, this Yahoo! Politics story from June on how the Koch brothers are trying to hijack the Republican Party right out from under the RNC - and that their tool of choice is a form of elections database software called i360:

The Kochs’ political arm, Freedom Partners, which oversees i360, views the issue as one of capability. Koch aides — several of whom used to work at the RNC — want to win elections, and in their view the RNC has inherent challenges to helping the party win. Party committee fundraising is severely limited by federal election law, while building, maintaining and enriching a database is expensive.

Michael Palmer, president of i360, emphasized in an email that his firm is a “private company that provides data, technology and analytical services to dozens of candidates, campaigns and other organizations that promote free market principles.”

“Our clients own their own data and are free to share it as they see fit. We believe that a robust marketplace of political technology and data is a healthy way to advance past the single monopoly model that has failed the Republican Party in recent presidential elections,” Palmer said.

What's very interesting here is that very few Republicans besides Priebus seem to be willing to openly criticize the Kochs or side with the Republican National Committee.  Mitch McConnell is among the establishment Republicans who sides with the Kochs on this.  In my view, there are at least possible reasons for this:  they like the Kochware, they get money from the Kochs or Koch fronts, or they fear angering a Koch-riled-up GOP base.

So what do you think will happen? What do you think should happen?   Poll is below.

Wed Oct 28, 2015 at  7:34 PM PT: Thanks to northanger in the comments, I had the chance to read a National Review piece that fairly gushed over the Koch-funded LIBRE outfit, which provides all sorts of free services to Hispanics in need - and then feeds their data into the i360 maw:

Perhaps most important, those signing up to see Jeb Bush (or for the driving classes, tax-preparation help, or health checkups that Libre offers) provide their names and contact information. That flows back into an enormous voter database owned and controlled by another Koch group, i360, which the donor network hopes will replace the Republican National Committee’s data trove. Many say it already has. Data collected from canvassing conducted by other groups in the network — Americans for Prosperity, Concerned Veterans for America, Concerned Women for America — flows back to the same place, and i360 is amassing detailed voter profiles and developing the sort of technological wherewithal that propelled President Obama to victory in both 2008 and 2012.