Or a story earlier this week in the Lexington Herald Leader in which a longtime McConnell political strategist explained his boss’s approach to a primary challenge from SCF-backed Matt Bevin.”Leader McConnell will beat his opponent because he is more in line with Kentucky Republicans and in doing so will send a message to the groups that purity for profit is a losing strategy,” Billy Piper said.

The moral of the story? That after years of trying to make nice with the growing constellation of tea party groups, the GOP establishment has realized that there isn’t likely to be a peaceful detente any time soon. Groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund don’t want to win a seat at the establishment table. They want to tip the table over and take an ax to it.

Here’s how Piper, the McConnell ally, framed the fight in an e-mail exchange with The Fix Wednesday night: “It is not so much establishment versus outsiders as it is those who feel a responsibility to steer the country toward better times and those who seek to profit off of artificial measures of partisan purity.”