Civil War Within The GOP

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a great article up on the civil war raging within the Republican Party of Texas:

From Fort Worth to Fredericksburg, the GOP has gone to war with itself — with internecine battles sweeping unabated in campaign after campaign in the run-up to the March 7 primaries. And the stakes in these battles are high: Analysts say that not just political careers stand in the balance, but also major tax and education initiatives.

“It’s pretty evident that there’s a civil war going on in the Republican Party,” said Harvey Kronberg, editor of the online Quorum Report. “The conservative wing of the Republican Party is trying to purge anybody that doesn’t follow the party line. You [also] have a number of local communities that are up in arms and outraged about proposals that affect their public schools, and they are trying to beat incumbents.”

Eight GOP incumbents face primary challenges from Republicans with education backgrounds including Kent Grusendorf of Arlington and Dan Flynn of Van. Another five face well-funded Leininger trolls who are voucher advocates.

The article also highlights a new Conservative PAC. Texans for Texas, which runs the website Texas Shark Watch and its accompanying weblog.  This site, which mainly seems to focus on who is getting trial lawyer money, has questioned the credentials of some of the state’s most conservative lawmakers including Reps. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land), and Robert Talton (R-Pasadena). SharkWatch faults the Reps for getting too close to traditional Democratic supporters: aka Trial Lawyers.

The fact is that the GOP is involved in perhaps its bloodiest civil war yet, a civil war that could rip the party limb from limb. And, this could be a good thing for Democrats.

Given that the GOP powers that be have a reputation of making their primary voters believe they are as conservative as the most conservative candidate in the race, more far-right-wing hard-liners winning GOP primaries makes it that much better for Democrats. Clearly, against some of the right-wingers pushed by the GOP in this year’s primary, most Democratic candidates will look like middle of the road moderates come November. If, and only if, they have enough money to attack the GOP candidates and point out how radical they realy are.

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