Actually the big battle is between the conservative tea party types like Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Allen West and Mike Lee vs. more paleo-libertarian tea party types like Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and Wayne Allyn Root.
There are clear fundamental differences.
Riiigggghhhttttt
That’s why Ted Cruz went on the Senate Floor saying he doesn’t trust the Republicans. Because he’s just itching for a fight with Wayne Allen Root and Justin Amash.
Bachmann called Snowden a Traitor, NeoCon-Lite.
When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had their vote on the Syria Intervention late in May, There were three votes against intervening. One from the isolationist Rand Paul plus two votes from two antiwar democrats.
Then later Mike Lee joined those three to introduce legislation into the Senate opposing the Syria Intervention.
There are clear fundamental differences.
Differences over specific issues? Of course.
Fundamental differences? Nonsense. Both of these entities strongly oppose the Marxist/Socialist trends America is on. Both of them understand the threat of Tyranny from ever-expanding government. Are there disagreements over foreign & domestic policy, interventionism, immigration, the Tyrannical Drug War, etc.? Of course.
But there is broad-based agreement on the general parameters. Both groups are united for limited government, the Constitution, the entire Bill of Rights, opposing authoritarian collectivism and mob rule, opposing RINO compromises, anti-Communism, corruption in government, etc., etc...
IMHO, the differences are far less significant than the commonalities, and when such relatively related factions are pitted against each other, I can only imagine that this is something our Enemy delights in, and indeed tries to engineer at every opportunity. They try to do the same thing with race, religion, any fault line they can exploit.
The People should not fall victim to these strategems. I, for one, would be delighted to see a President from either of the groups you mention, and I would readily and energetically vote for any such candidate, regardless of policy differences, as opposed to a Democrat (the Party of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice) or a RINO from the GOPe.
Look, there are several issues, such as the 2nd Amendment, that I would litmus-test almost any* GOP candidate on, but any bona fide member from one of those two loosely classified groups you mention would be a thousand times better than the most palatable Establishment candidate from either party.
* I, sadly and with great reservation, might have voted for Romney, the architect of 0bamacare and a man with, at best, a questionable record on the Second Amendment. Oh yeah, and McCain, too.