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The GOP establishment in Georgia wants to tamp down tea party fervor ahead of a primary election for an open US Senate seat. Its aim: prevent a primary that yields a candidate who can't win a general election.

Four years after Atlanta saw some of the earliest and biggest tea party rallies in the country, Georgia’s GOP establishment, including Gov. Nathan Deal, are pondering strategies to reduce the right-wing insurgency’s influence on next year’s primary election for a US Senate seat – and on the larger struggle for power in Washington.

To be sure, Georgia is about as red a state as they come. It has had an all-Republican contingent in the US Senate for years, and the state gave a big thumbs-down to Barack Obama twice.

But the emergence of a big-name Democrat – Michelle Nunn, daughter of longtime and big-time former Sen. Sam Nunn – suddenly has the state GOP on the defensive.

As mainstream GOP leaders see it, the problem is how to keep the state’s powerful tea party contingent from dominating the primary nomination process and picking an extreme-right candidate who couldn’t win a general election.

The national GOP establishment is still smarting over losses in Missouri and Indiana that not only helped deny Republicans their Senate majority but also put new dents in an already dinged-up GOP brand.

candidacy has energized Democrats, many of whom believe she could win a matchup against arch-conservative Republican candidates such as US Reps. Paul Broun of Athens, Ga., or Phil Gingrey of Marietta, Ga., both of whom politicos say have extreme fiscal or social views that are likely to alienate general election voters.

Congressman Broun (pronounced “Brown”), a physician, has become known nationally for a YouTube video of a speech, filmed before a wall of stuffed animal trophies, in which he denounces the theory of evolution, calling it a lie “from the pit of hell.”

“God’s word is true,” said Mr. Broun in the video. “I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, big bang theory – all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

Representative Gingrey skidded into a similar red zone for general election voters when he referred to Congressman Akin’s comments on rape as “partly right.”

With seven GOP candidates already in the Senate race, a strong showing by a far-right-wing candidate in the primary would likely lead to a runoff against a more establishment Republican candidate. With low turnout, most bets are off as to the outcome.

Many in the national GOP establishment believe the party, to succeed nationally in the short and long terms, needs to move toward the center on issues such as immigration in order to appeal to more people, including Hispanics and younger voters.

The handwringing and machinations in Georgia mark an increasingly bitter civil war in Republican ranks, fought out not by politicians out to change the rules of political competition, but also by a vast fundraising establishment that picks winners and losers before a single vote is cast.

Club for Growth, which funnels money and support to fiscally conservative Republican candidates, has not made an endorsement yet in the Georgia primary, but Broun ranks No. 1 on its legislative scorecord, with a lifetime score of 100 percent.

While Akin and Mourdock both lost in states with long Democratic traditions, and more because of major gaffes than policy positions, moderate Republicans in red, purple, and blue states also lost, including Linda Lingle in Hawaii, Rick Berg in North Dakota (a state won handily by Mitt Romney), and former Gov. Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, he says. Excerpts from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Senate/2013/0817/In-Georgia-s-S
enate-race-signs-of-GOP-unease-about-tea-party-clout

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