The GOP civil war will not end anytime soon

So it is to be war between us. But this time, my clever friend, the disaster will be yours. — The Phantom, Phantom of the Opera

During the 16-day government shutdown, the press was full of reports of the battle going on within the Republican Party. Those reports may be understated. The centrist and the liberal Republicans want revenge.

Even as the Obamacare website, and the broken promise of being able to keep ones healthcare, is threatening to give the GOP everything they lost in the shutdown and more, even though it was the tea party activists who gave the GOP its house majority, the “establishment” money men of the Republican Party are preparing to attack conservative lawmakers “from sea to shining sea.”

This will not be a coordinated operation. It will be a messy, ugly, down in the gutter type of attack--prone to backfiring. And if the “establishment” rainmakers win, it will be in fits and starts, most likely culminating in the selection of a Presidential nominee in 2016.

As Nation Magazine Reported:

“Hopefully we’ll go into eight to 10 races and beat the snot out of them,” said former Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, whose new political group, Defending Main Street, aims to raise $8 million to fend off tea-party challenges against more mainstream Republican incumbents. “We’re going to be very aggressive and we’re going to get in their faces.”

“This is a battle we have to fight,” said GOP consultant John Feehery, who has advised top Republican leaders on Capitol Hill. “We can’t just lie down and let this happen.”

Republican strategists, donors, and party leaders are conspiring run attack ads against tea-party candidates for Congress, overthrow the Ron Paul libertarians who dominate the Iowa and Minnesota state parties; promote open primaries vs. state conventions, and fight conservative groups Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and FreedomWorks who target Republican incumbents with “less than pure” conservative credentials.

It was Heritage Action which sabotaged a deal in the House of Representatives that could have ended the shutdown a day before the eventual Senate deal.

LaTourette’s Defending Main Street group has identified its first project: defending Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho. The Club for Growth threw its support to a tea-party challenger, Bryan Smith, because Simpson backed the $700 million Wall Street bailout, raising the debt ceiling, and a budget deal that staved off the fiscal cliff.

Defending Main Street also is keeping an eye on other House Republicans who have drawn the wrath of the Club for Growth, including Aaron Schock and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is running for the Senate.

But there are many more races drawing the attention of the Republican establishment who fear the tea party — and the public’s growing distaste for the movement—is jeopardizing GOP control of the House and a potential Senate takeover.

Consider:

•A Nov. 5 special congressional election in Alabama, where former state Senator Bradley Byrne is competing in the Republican runoff primary against Dean Young, a tea-party candidate who declared at a candidate forum, “We are witnessing the end of a Western Christian empire.”

•A crowded Republican primary field facing a top Democratic recruit, Michelle Nunn, for the Senate being vacated by Saxby Chambliss in Georgia. One GOP operative described two of the candidates vying for the nomination, Reps. Paul Broun and Phil Gingrey, as “ticking time bombs.” Broun has condemned the theory of evolution, questioned President Obama’s citizenship and religion, and advocated abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard. Gingrey defended former Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, who said victims of “legitimate rape” could avoid pregnancy.

Another group targeting the Tea Party will be Karl Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, an arm of the Crossroads super PAC. They plan to vet GOP primary candidates with the goal of sending the most viable conservative to the general election.