Benjy Sarlin & Evan McMorris-Santoro
The Republican leadership's efforts to avert a debt ceiling crisis with a two-tiered set of cuts is turning into the most divisive wedge issue the party has confronted since President Obama took over in 2009.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) may have thought his face-saving plan, which he hoped to bring to the floor Wednesday, offered a path to victory. However, since treading upon it he's been beset from all sides. It's not just that the President is threatening to veto the bill, should it ever make it past the Senate; it's that Boehner's fellow conservatives are sniping at him with (not so) friendly fire. Now the vote he'd hoped to bring triumphantly to the floor Wednesday looks delayed until at least Thursday, and even then the outcome is uncertain.
That's because the GOP is teetering on the brink of a debt-based civil war. More traditional Republicans and big business types are desperate to avoid a recovery-crushing default. But their Tea Party colleagues are leading a rebellion of epic - perhaps even galactic - proportions. Cue the John Williams music and find out who stands where in this stand-off between the Establishment's storm-troopers and the Rebel Alliance.
Boehner's Imperial LegionBoehner has rallied core elements of the Republican establishment to his cause, including business leaders, the House leadership and even the aging warrior Fred Thompson.
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The Rebel AllianceLeading the rebellion against Boehner is a scrappy coalition of small government groups, Tea Partiers, and ultra-conservative lawmakers. Will they be able to regain control of the Debt Star and harness its power, or will it blow up in their face?
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