The clash of Elephants

The current Republican brand

It's great to see the Republican brand so splintered that it needs two rebuttals to President Obama's state-of-the-union address.

Talk about mixed messages.

Evidently, the elephants are crashing their own Grand Old Party

In the Grand Canyon state, the Arizona Republican Party officially censured Sen. John McCain, former Vietnam prisoner of war and ex-presidential candidate, "for his continued disservice to our state and nation."

Really.

Now, McCain may be a complete jerk who has no use for sycophants in the Republican Party who prize party purity above all else, but to characterize his political actions as a "disservice" to this country is bizarre.

In Oregon, the only GOP candidate who has a legitimate shot at defeating Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley is Monica Wehby, a Portland pediatric neurosurgeon, will likely lose in the GOP primary to state Sen. Jason Conger of Bend.

Why? Because she doesn't believe the government should govern abortion. Afterall, she is a woman first and a Republican second. She has dedicated her life to children, yet, to Republican diehards, she's just a RINO because she doesn't blindly oppose abortion.

Ironically, the "pro-life" crowd is staunchly pro-death penalty.

Party platform purity has kept Oregon Republicans from winning many statewide races for decades.

The national Republican Party hasn't bothered to pour in boatloads of money to unseat Merkley because they know they'll lose.

Oregon is a blue state with huge geographical swaths of deep-red Republicans.

The problem for the GOP in the Beaver State is that the vast majority of voters live in the Portland area and they reliably vote Democratic.

It's just numbers.

In Arizona, meanwhile, McCain will survive the latest attack on his service to this country.

But, the GOP is positioning itself to be the party of losers, in every sense of that word.