I'll push him, you trip him.
One of the most interesting emerging dynamics of the Republican presidential race is how rapidly it is exacerbating the obvious contempt the two most powerful segments of the party have for each other. The old guard and the new guard—pragmatic business types and tea party-fueled scenery-chewers, respectively—are perfectly happy to
tear each other to ribbons in public.
On Monday morning, Sen. Graham told Morning Joe that [Sen. Rand Paul] is “more wrong than right” on foreign policy, and that “even Obama” is stronger than the libertarian-leaning senator when it comes to dealing with threats abroad. The U.S. Senator from South Carolina accused Sen. Paul of wanting to “lead from behind” on global issues. Additionally, Sen. McCain — Graham’s best friend for life — charged that Paul “just doesn’t understand” foreign policy.
Rand Paul, whose qualifications for the presidency rank barely above those of a goldfish or well-dressed cabbage, was having none of that:
"This comes from a group of people wrong about every policy issue over the last couple decades. I’ll give you a couple examples where they support the president’s foreign policy and I don’t: They supported Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya; they supported President Obama’s bombing of Assad; they also support President Obama’s foreign aid to countries that hate us. So if there is anyone who is most opposed to President Obama’s foreign policy, it’s me. People who call loudest to criticize me are great proponents of President Obama’s foreign policy — they just want to do it ten times over. [...] And these people are essentially the lapdogs for President Obama and I think they’re sensitive about that."
The Republican Party has been split into two halves, thanks to the tea party, and the two halves cannot stand each other. They will no doubt all begrudgingly rally around the eventual candidate no matter who it is—unless it is Ted Cruz—but the primaries themselves are shaping up to be one of the bloodiest in recent memory.