“The biggest backfire will be when the GOP establishment is successful in fighting the Tea Party candidates in the primaries and expect the conservatives will have no option but to vote for GOP during the November election.”
Your post bears repeating. The dollar figures that are now being reported are definitely going to get the attention of the GOPe. Combine that with your post and you will, albeit belatedly, start to see some questioning of Rove and other political consultants. They should have been purged after the 2012 debacle—but no, they just clenched onto their desk chairs even harder. They have to go.
The establishment republicans have already played the third party card in Alaska, (Murkowski), and Florida, (Crist). If they think we are afraid to play that card because it will split the vote, and give the win to the Dems, that didn’t happen in either case.