GOP's Internal War Heats Up

There is no doubt that the Republican Party was embarrassed in the last election. They not only lost the presidential election big, but have lost several senate seats in the last few elections they were supposed to win. Examples of this are the losing campaigns of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Todd Akin in Missouri, and Richard Mourdock in Indiana. They were expected to winn all of those seats, and a moderate Republican probably would have done so -- but the tea bagger/fundamentalists in  the party were able to nominate extremist candidates that the general voting public just could not accept.

And it's not just the senate candidates. The extremists nominated (and elected in some states) are tarnishing the reputation of the national party, and making it very difficult for the party to return to power. Those extremist candidates just scare the majority of American voters. This has initiated a split in the party over how to return to being a majority party.

The tea bagger/fundamentalist base of the party wants social change, and they are convinced that different leaders can convince enough voters to return Republicans to power. But the business-oriented establishment Republicans (the corporate and Wall Street Republicans) don't believe that. They just want a return to the "trickle-down" economics of Reagan and Bush II, and don't think they can return to power if extremist candidates keep being nominated.

Now the establishment Republicans, led by Karl Rove, have decided to spend some money to beat back the extremists in Republican primaries. Rove's super-PAC, American Crossroads, has created an off-shoot PAC called the Conservative Victory Project. This new PAC is dedicated to seeing that moderate business-oriented establishment Republicans defeat the fundamentalist/teabagger extremists in party primaries, giving the party a better chance in general elections.

With this new PAC, the GOP's war for party control heats up. Will the socially-conservative tea bagger/fundamentalists keep control over the party, or will the economically-conservative establishment leaders be able to take control of the party? Does it even matter which side wins? The answer to those questions will be played out over the next couple of elections, and frankly, either side could win. The social conservatives have a lot of votes, but the economic conservatives control the purse-strings.

Personally, I think it's going to be a long fight, and with the influx of corporate money by Rove's group, it's already starting to get down and dirty. We probably won't know the winner until at least 2016, when we see who the party nominates as their presidential candidate -- an establishment candidate like Chris Christie or a teabagger candidate like Rand Paul or Rick Santorum.

Lay in a good stock of popcorn, because it's going to be an interesting and probably bloody spectacle.