Republican Cannibals... Use Plenty Of Salt And Pepper

So while Karl Rove and the plutocrats who back him-- and Romney-- fight it out with teabag moneybags David and Charles Koch, who seem to favor Perry, Bachmann or their wind-up minstrel show, the far right extremists who have been more and more in control of the Republican Party are targeting mainstream conservatives for extinction. Aaron Blake had the story about this healthy trend this morning for the Washington Post.

The challengers and potential challengers range from state legislators readying to run against freshmen Reps. Scott Desjarlais (R-Tenn.) and Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) and aborted presidential candidate Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), to grassroots activists looking to become the next Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) or Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.)-- the two House GOP freshmen who unseated incumbents in primaries last year.

...Many of the incumbents facing primaries have seen them before. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who won with less than 30 percent of the vote in his 2010 primary, is again being targeted be several formidable foes. And Reps. Alan Nunnelee (R-Miss.), Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.), Tom Graves (R-Ga.) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) all could face opponents they dispatched in 2010 primaries-- sometimes by small margins.
But others are getting their first taste of what’s it’s like to be on the other end of a tea party challenge.

Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), who hasn’t faced a primary since returning to Congress in 2006, is getting called a “RINO”-- a.k.a. “Republican in Name Only,” by a local tea party activist who has bought an hour-long slot on a local radio station.

An aide to tea party Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is challenging another member of Congress, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), who hasn’t faced a primary in any of his House races, including when he was elected in 2002. The challenger, 27-year-old Evan Feinberg, has been grabbing a fair amount of headlines over the past week, and RedState.com founder Erick Erickson has made defeating Murphy a pet project.

And Murphy’s fellow moderate Pennsylvanian, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R), faces his own potential challenge from a staffer for the tea party-aligned group Americans for Prosperity, Jennifer Stefano. Stefano cites Fitzpatrick’s vote against a GOP-sponsored labor bill.

...But just the prospect of becoming the latest incumbent to draw the ire of the tea party can be enough to get the safest of incumbents to ramp up his or her campaign a little early.

And given Congress’s ill repute, members really can’t start warding off these potential challenges too early.

The Republican grassroots-- as crazy, racist, reactionary and generally ignorant as they are-- are doing the right thing by holding their Beltway establishment's feet to the fire and keeping them afraid of pissing off the base. We'd be way better off if the Democrats did the same thing. Is anyone challenging corrupt corporate shills like Steny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz this cycle? That was rhetorical-- and so far we have only one progressive, Cecil Bothwell, seriously challenging a Blue Dog (the execrable Heath Shuler). In fact, please consider giving Cecil a hand if you can.