But the details of the conversation hardly mattered to the protesters. To them, the call was a game-changer simply because it existed. Walker took the call; he knew who Koch was; he talked for 20 minutes. Democrats in the state Assembly, who had been mentioning the Koch-Walker connections or the no-bid-power-plant theory throughout their debate, took to the floor on Wednesday to ask what Walker knew about Koch and when he knew him.

“These Koch brothers!” said a worried-sounding Rep. Gary Hebl. “These Koch brothers are talking to Gov. Walker!”…

“It was shocking to us,” he said. “We now understand why [Walker] killed the train money, why he killed the wind development, why he killed $46 million of transit money. He’s in the pocket of big oil interests.”

I asked why this proved that these were things David Koch wanted.

“I’m not going to talk about a vast right-wing conspiracy like Mrs. Clinton,” he said, laughing. “But I’ve seen this movie before.”