Are Republicans Going to Destroy Each Other?

The electorate card is in their favor, and the retirement of Democratic elected officials should allow Republicans to take back control of the Senate in 2014. Yet, the future elections do not look so peaceful. Republicans have launched a “self-destruction machine” over the last several weeks, giving hopes to the president’s party of keeping a majority in the Senate. We are starting to hear rumors of in-fighting amongst members of the Republican establishment, represented by Karl Rove and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also leader of the tea party coalition.

In 2014, the Democrats will have to defend a trifling sum of 21 seats, six of which are in states that Barack Obama lost during the 2012 presidential election. The Republicans will only have to defend 14 seats. Among the Democratic Party’s retiring stars are three very popular senators who will be difficult to replace: Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V, Carl Levin, D-Mich. and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

The GOP must take back six seats in order to win a majority in the Senate once again, which it lost in 2006. This is doable, but difficult, especially if Republicans have to face tea party candidates once again. These candidates often generate a great deal of enthusiasm from the base during the primaries, but their chances of winning on Election Day are pretty slim. Other times, the group’s candidates successfully get through the primaries but in such a weakened state that the Democrats win.

Last November, Democrats had to defend 23 seats out of 33 at stake. If they had lost four, they would have also lost the majority. Ultimately, instead of losing, they won two on the Republicans.

Already, two Republican candidates running for seats abandoned by Democrats, former Gov. Mike Rounds, R-S.D. and Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.V. — candidates the party supports discreetly — have become the object of attack by groups who feel they are not conservative enough. Karl Rove and his friends could well get a surprise like last November’s when Rove refused to believe that Obama had won Ohio on Fox News.