(The above image is by Stuart Carlson at carlsontoons.com.)There is currently a big split in the Republican Party. While most in the party's establishment wing have moved far to the right to try and please their large teabagger element, it has not been far enough to please the tea bagging extremists. This split has gotten so bad that Karl Rove, on behalf of the party establishment and business interests (Wall Street), has set up a super-PAC to fight against the teabaggers in upcoming election primaries -- in the hopes of getting GOP candidates more acceptable to general election voters.
And that party split will be very obvious on Tuesday night. After the president gives his State of the Union address, it is tradition for the party out of power to give their response. But on Tuesday night, the Republicans will be giving two responses -- one from the right-wing establishment Republicans and another from the extremist teabagger Republicans.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has been chosen by the Republicans to give the "official" Republican response. But for the third year in a row, the teabagger element has decided that the official Republican response will not be extreme enough for them (even though it is being delivered by a solidly right-wing politician). They have chosen Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to deliver the teabagger response to the president's speech.
This will mark the third year in a row that the split in the Republican Party has been highlighted by two responses being given. In 2011, the teabaggers chose Rep. Michele Bachman to give their response, and in 2012 they chose Herman Cain to do it.
The GOP can claim to be unified, but if they were really unified there would be no need to give two separate responses to the State of the Union message. They are in the midst of an internal party war -- being waged between the right-wing and the extreme right-wing for control of the party. And it is a war of their own making. They funded and created the teabagger groups in the hope of organizing opposition to President Obama. Now they find they cannot control the monster they created -- and that teabagging monster has taken over the party in many states.
It is still too early to tell which of the party's right-wing elements will emerge as the winner, the right or the extreme right, but it will be interesting to watch in the next few elections (especially the party's primaries).
