How Does The Republican Civil War Look From Behind Enemy Lines?

The Greed and Selfishness wing of the GOP tried asserting it's control over the party it thinks it owns and is running into fierce resistance. The Hatred and Bigotry wing isn't going to take it any longer and seems willing to wreck what's left of the party in an attempt for a full takeover. It's easy to say "You go for it," but there are two major problems. 1- As we learned in the 1940s, fascism is dangerous and 2- old style, "mainstreamish" conservatives are flooding into the Democratic Party. Last week we saw lifelong Republican Patrick Murphy working to reorient the House freshmen along more traditional conservative lines and Florida's moribund Democratic Party is showing itself as opportunistic as another lifelong Republican, Charlie Crist, as it goes along with Debbie Wasserman Schultz's demand that real Democrats be threatened and cajoled out of running for governor to make way for Crist.

It looks like Senate Minority Leader, Mitch "Miss" McConnell (R-KY), certainly the most vulnerable Republican senator up for reelection in 2014 (approval rating- 37%) has attracted a rich teabagger for a primary brawl. Matthew Bevin claims he's being encouraged to run by folks who are sick of McConnell's sleazy insider way of conducting himself. Terry Boyd at InsiderLouisville reports: he was unable to reach Bevin.

[H]is LinkedIn bio states that he’s “currently travelling the country in a Sprinter van with my wonderful wife and five children as we experience first hand the people, industries, historical locations and geographic wonders that make the United States of America the greatest nation on earth….”

Before he hit the road, Bevin had been CEO and principal partner at Integrity Asset Management. IAM was sold to Munder Capital Management based in Birmingham, Mich. in 2010.

Little is known about Bevin outside the Baptist Theological Seminary, which he helps underwrite and more attention has been focused on a much netter known and more mainstream potential opponent for Miss McConnell, actress Ashley Judd. A bruising Republican primary could help erode McConnell's already shaky base. Right-wing extremists don't care. They see McConnell as a big part of the problem they've been brainwashed into thinking is wrong with America-- and certainly not part of the solution. Take for example, deadbeat dad, flip-flopping crackpot and former congressman, Joe Walsh.

Walsh was gerrymandered out of his seat by Democrats, then tricked by Boehner into running against Tammy Duckworth in a district he couldn't win instead of primarying Randy Hultgren in the district both had been tossed into (the 14th). Walsh would have probably beaten Hultgren and gone on to win reelection but was, predictably, slaughtered 55-45% by Duckworth. Today, the never very stable, Walsh is bitter... and against everyone. He knows he got played by Boehner and he's writing openly about destroying the Republican Establishment.

The country is broke. We have a government that we can’t afford. It’s a government that does too many things for too many people, and we have a private economy which is stuck and unable to grow… And Illinois is even worse off. We arrived here because the Republican Party-- traditionally the party of freedom, limited government, and individual responsibility-- lost its way a long time ago... Republicans, too lazy to make the case for freedom and too afraid to lose elections, have quietly gone along over the years and done their best to sound ”Democrat lite,” arguing that they can manage big government better than the Democrats.

So we’ve been without a true freedom and limited government party for years. That is changing. There is a civil war brewing in the Republican Party, both nationally and in Illinois, and it will be a good, necessary, and often ugly thing. The base-- the Tea Party movement, conservatives, and independents-- woke up in 2008 and said, “Stop! Quit growing government. Quit running up these terrible deficits and bankrupting future generations. We’re taxed too much, and we’re regulated to death.”

This movement put its faith in the Republican Party in 2010 to get it right. This movement is at odds with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which simply wants to cling to power and stand for their version of a “better managed” big government. This movement has begun publicly fighting with the Republican establishment and if the establishment doesn’t embrace the freedom movement, the movement will leave the Republican Party, both nationally and in Illinois... We will leave the Republican Party if we must because we will not compromise on freedom and limited government.

If you thought the Todd Akin debacle in Missouri was fun to watch, make some popcorn and sit back because this could get a lot more dramatic-- and not just in Kentucky and Illinois. Yesterday, for example, right-wing loon Richard Viguerie launched a contest, looking for grassroots ideas for how the far right could take over the GOP-- with a $10,000 prize!

Today, I'm announcing “The Liberty Prize,” a contest for grassroots conservatives to submit a plan or ideas to take over the Republican Party, win the November 2016 elections, and govern America by 2017.

The most important political battle in America is not between Republicans and Democrats or between conservatives and liberals. It is the battle for control of the Republican Party between establishment big government Republicans and limited government, constitutional conservatives. It has become clear that establishment Republican and Democratic politicians have failed America because they have both accepted big government as the solution to every problem.

The urgency of this effort cannot be overstated.

With big government establishment Republicans, led by Karl Rove, launching a multi-million dollar PAC to control Republican Primary elections and the changes to the Republican Party rules rammed through the 2012 Republican Convention by Mitt Romney's inside-the-Beltway allies, conservatives must have a well-organized and well-thought-out plan to take control of the GOP from the grassroots up. Otherwise, the Republican Party will continue its slow creep away from the conservative principles that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Contract With America Congress in 1994, and the Tea Party wave Congress in 2010.