Christie vs. Paul vs. Rubio vs. Cruz — the Republican implosion

American humorist Will Rogers once said, “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

The old saying goes that, come election time, Republicans fall in line and Democrats fall apart. The tradition in the GOP has been that, if you ran for president and came up short — Ronald Reagan in 1976, George H.W. Bush in 1980, John McCain in 2000, Mitt Romney in 2008 — next time, it would be your turn. Among Democrats, it was a free-for-all. Hillary Clinton was thought to have a lock on the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, but Barack Obama had other ideas.

That’s how it has long been in our politics. Republicans were the party of order, Democrats were prone to chaos.

No more. In 2013, the Democrats seem pretty well organized. All of them eyeing the presidency — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, et al. — seem to be waiting to see what Hillary Clinton will do in 2016 before announcing their intentions.

Meanwhile, Republicans are engaged in a series of messy food fights.

You have Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas vs. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida over immigration; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vs. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky over domestic surveillance and the cost of preventing terrorism; Paul vs. Sen. John McCain of Arizona over whether the Kentucky senator would — if he ran for president — be preferable to Hillary Clinton; Rubio vs. the GOP establishment over defunding Obamacare; and Cruz vs. well, just about everybody over just about everything.

The result is a battle royal with four or five slugfests going on at once.

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