GOP running scared over primaries?

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - We’ve seen an inordinate amount of handwringing over the campaign of Douglas Hoffman in NY-23’s special election today, as some in the party have openly wondered whether conservatives will split into a third party for the 2010 general elections. That consists entirely of empty speculation, as no one has even tried that — and the Hoffman example doesn’t apply as a precedent anyway. Now, Politico reports that the hysteria in the GOP over conservatism has now made them scared of a perfectly normal and legitimate intraparty mechanism — the primary. Either the GOP needs to get some testicular fortitude or Politico needs to dial down the hyperbole:

In what could be a nightmare scenario for Republican Party officials, conservative activists are gearing up to challenge leading GOP candidates in more than a dozen key House and Senate races in 2010.

Conservatives and tea party activists had already set their sights on some of the GOP’s top Senate recruits — a list that includes Gov. Charlie Crist in Florida, former Rep. Rob Simmons in Connecticut and Rep. Mark Kirk in Illinois, among others.

But their success in Tuesday’s upstate New York special election, where grass-roots efforts pushed GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race and helped Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman surge into the lead on the eve of Election Day, has generated more money and enthusiasm than organizers ever imagined.

Activists predict a wave that could roll from California to Kentucky to New Hampshire and that could leave even some GOP incumbents — Utah Sen. Bob Bennett is one — facing unexpectedly fierce challenges from their right flank.

“I would say it’s the tip of the spear,” said Dick Armey, the former GOP House majority leader who now serves as chairman of FreedomWorks, an organization that has been closely aligned with the tea party movement. “We are the biggest source of energy in American politics today.”

“What you’re going to see,” said Armey, “is moderates and conservatives across the country in primaries.”

Oh, my goodness, it’s such an unprecedented “nightmare”! Why, who would have guessed that more than one candidate might run in primaries? That’s so wild, one has to dig far back into the memory banks to remember that the GOP holds a primary 'in every normal election cycle for every political race'.