What will it look like when the tea party starts eating itself?

One thing the Tea Party had going for it, one thing that they will now lose as the 2012 presidential candidates are powering up, is the fact that they have never really had to run against each other. They could run around in circles, saying strange things, bashing Washington, the Democrats, the media, and even the few moderate Republican still surviving out there, but they've never had to face off against each other.

Now we have a field of presidential hopefuls and maybes emerging that have a pretty solid record of attacking hard, with cheap shots, with sound bites that treat facts as an unnecessary inconveniences, and who tend to care more about gaining widespread media coverage of their strange, outlandish comments than about the logic or even coherence of their comments, seeking name recognition more than respect. And now they are going to be going after each other, using these methods to tear each other to shreds.

The Obama crew has run one of the tightest ships in many, many years when it comes to gaffes and miscalculations from the 2008 campaign and on into the White House, but listening to the Tea Partiers, you'd think it was a ship of fools in charge. This is not to say that the current administration has been pitch perfect, and I am not talking about whether or not you agree with them politically, but they have been managing themselves in a fairly professional manner.

Still, the tea partiers and the far right latch onto any thing they can and shred away at it like a bunch of rabid sharks in a feeding frenzy. Over the last few years, they have had quite a bit of success in spite of the fact that, in traditional politics, they have made more mistakes, factual errors, gaffes, and miscalculations than any other political movement in recent history. In fact, they use what appears to be almost embarrassing amateurishness when it comes to politics as one of their biggest selling points. However, when they turn on each other, the amount of material each candidate will have to use against each other will be tremendous, and I don't even know if you can call it "going dirty" when you start by raising yourself out of the mud to take aim at those around you...

This circular firing squad will be interesting to watch. I suspect the Republican nominee will be whomever does the best job staying out of the messy fray.

The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News/The Atlantic Wire

The Palin-Bachmann Fight We've All Been Waiting For - Yahoo! News