Time: So Much for GOP Unity

The Republican Party’s unity project is not turning out to be much of a “Kumbaya” around the campfire.

A year after GOP leaders vowed that infighting between the party establishment and Tea Party activists would not derail Republicans’ electoral hopes again, the air appears as toxic as ever.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, facing a primary challenge in Kentucky, said on Tuesday that one of the outside groups funding insurgent candidates is “giving conservatism a bad name” and “participating in ruining the [Republican] brand.” Earlier that day, the head of the group accused him of trying to “blacklist” political strategists who work with Tea Party candidates. Late on Monday, a firebrand Congressman who brought Ted Nugent to the State of the Union pulled the trigger on a surprise primary against the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn.

Now, with the 2014 midterm elections nearing and Republicans looking longingly at their best chance of recapturing the Senate, many of the party’s power brokers first have to fend off primary challenges in eight of the 12 states where they have incumbents seeking re-election. “There is no magic wand that’s going to do away with primaries,” says former New York Republican Representative Tom Reynolds, a leading party fundraiser. “We’re just going to have to go through this.”

Read more: 2014 Election: So Much for Republican Party Unity in Senate Races | TIME.com http://swampland.time.com/2013/12/11/so-much-for-gop-unity-in-2014/#ixzz2nFvP6aPQ