Will a nasty primary tear the GOP apart, or will it bring energy to the party?

Harvey with another gem of a commentary, filled with liberal wishful thinking (link). Excerpts follow...

It doesn't matter whether Perry or Hutchison wins the primary. The loser and their supporters can expect punishment and political exile for years to come. The loser's supporters may well be so angry at the negative campaign run by the victor, they simply skip the November general election.

Democrats can already smell the Republican blood-letting which is why even low name ID folks are signing up hoping to capitalize on a Republican train wreck.

[SNIP]

But the Perry campaign demonstrated that it will use every nasty trick in its arsenal to beat Hutchison. Her team fully understands the terms of engagement and will no doubt soon play at the same level.

Given an unpleasant primary, a damaged Republican nominee and a divided party, a marquee Democratic name could find a target of opportunity.

Harvey Kronberg makes it sound as if Rick's pranks are the first attack in this race. The fact of the matter is that Kay is the aggressor in terms of going negative first. Kay has been attacking Rick for several months without enough response in my opinion from Rick's peeps, and I have documented her attacks here, so I am not just opining, I am stating fact... I and many others were getting annoyed with Rick's peeps for their lack of response to her continuous attacks, almost like he wasn't really running or something... so a few YCT collegiate pranks egged on by Rick's peeps during her announcement tour should not be considered some sort of unprecedented vicious thing...

One part of Harvey's wishful thinking that may be true is that this race will not be especially great for the eventual winner, who I believe will be Rick. He will have his name dragged through the mud, and people reminded about the same stupid attacks Carole made in 2006... in the end, it will be a big waste of time and money, except if Kay actually resigns and we can get a real conservative in there who actually does his or her job. If Kay does ever resign, she will probably lose to Rick and have to ride off into the sunset of retirement. If she doesn't resign and loses, then she is weakened, he is weakened, and the whole thing was a big waste.

One positive thing about contested primaries though as demonstrated by Obama and Hillary is that it does engage a lot of people and does bring a lot of people into the game who might have otherwise been on the sideline... competition, as they say, makes people better, and competition could end up helping Rick and Kay both define themselves in ways they may have avoided if a back room coronation had taken place instead.

So far... Rick is excelling at competition. Kay is overwhelmed by it.