A GOP Civil War-Ish

It's fashionable to think that the Republican Party civil that everyone knew would be coming has been delayed until the end of a (relatively) polite little contest for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.

The Mods versus the Cons.

However, the fact that for the second time in one week, moderate Republicans allied with Democrats in a Southern state to elect a moderate and friendly-to-opposition Republican speaker different from the uber-conservative choice of the Republican establishment.

This happened in Texas, where San Antonio moderate Joe Straus ousted longtime conservative Tom Craddick.  In Tennessee, moderate Republican Kent Williams snuck in to the Speaker's position, garnering the votes of every Democrat -- conservative Republicans are outraged, claiming that Williams conspired against them.

(A correspondent from Texas writes: "The national implications of what happened in the Texas Leg this week are pretty minimal. The resistance to Craddick is much more about personality and the way he ran the house then policy. Traditionally, the Texas House had been a pretty non-partisan place with a lot of give and take for members of each party, it was part of the reason Bush was successful here with a Democratic Speaker and Democratic Lt. Gov (Presiding officer of the Senate in Texas). Craddick was much more heavy handed. A really under-reported part of this story is that some of the more politically savvy Republicans in the state knew that Craddick had to go even though he's much loved by the conservative grassroots. It's really because of Craddick that the Dems have climbed to 74 seats (out of 150) in the leg. Politically, Craddick was the best thing the Democrats in the state had going.")

The fact the pattern is repeating itself rather than being a one-time-thing seems worth noticing, if anything.

Actually, it had happened in 2006 in the Alaska legislature as well -- you'll recall the chorus of anti-Palin Republicans who popped up around the time of her selection by John McCain.

As one observer notes: "Interesting that Palin may have indeed been the model for
the future of the GOP - but not the way she thinks she is."