My must read of the day is "North Carolina Senate primary a test for GOP," in the Charlotte Observer:
National politics took the stage Monday in North Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, a race that offers the year’s first real test of clout between the GOP establishment and grass-roots insurgents.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a tea party favorite and possible GOP presidential candidate, headlined a Charlotte rally for Republican Greg Brannon. And former presidential nominee Mitt Romney became the latest establishment figure to back Brannon’s rival, Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis.
"This is the first high-profile Senate primary pitting the tea party against the establishment," said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the Cook Political Report.
This is an interesting race—and a critical one for Republicans. Based on a radio ad run by Hagan, which PolitiFact called "mostly false", it seems her preferred candidate would be Brannon. Republicans want to put up the most viable candidate in a general election and that is probably Tillis, but I don't buy into the notion that this primary is a "proxy war" between the tea party and the establishment GOP.
In 2010 and even 2012, I think it was an accurate assessment to label the intraparty disagreements a "civil war," now not so much.
The tea party's signature goal in 2010 was unseating incumbents and long-time politicians. This time around their biggest challenges seem to be in primaries where there is not an incumbent—places such as Nebraska and North Carolina.
That’s a very different thing. What Republicans have now is more of a rift. Like Sen. Rand Paul said, Republicans are "a big party" with "a lot of different voices … I don’t know if you can read too much into the tea leaves of this thing."
They're airing out differences, not attacking the Republican Party writ large. Across the board Republican primaries seem less about the "establishment" and more about specific candidates, and I think that’s the case in this primary as well.