[rmlew]

I think only two were "Tea Party Candidate" (TM no one).
4 Conservatives of varying quality and one establishment type. I really think thatwe need conservative primaries in most states for the RIGHJT candidate in the general primary and in presidential primaries.
I'm just happy that McCain has one clear opponent. I'd hate to seem him win.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Yeah, the problem is that before any changes to the system itself can be made, the power structure of the GOP first has to be wrestled away from the RINOs and county-club establishment types who always seem to manage to worm their way into positions of power.

That’s the problem here in the 4th congressional district of North Carolina. In our primary yesterday, we ended up seeing a Ron Paulian RINO win (barely) over the real conservative, largely for two reasons:

1) Lawson (the Paulistinian) was able to self-finance, thereby buying the election, and

2) the Wake county GOP establishment, which is pretty much RINO to its core, was stumping for him big time.

Here in Orange (which, ironically and despite having Chapel Hill in it, is a very conservative Party organisation), we were pushing for Frank Roche, and we ended up taking the county for Roche pretty handily (Lawson won it in 2008). But because Wake is the biggest county in the district by far, the RINOs there are able to control a lot of the media access to the race, direct press releases, control debate formats, etc.