Republican Party strategists say it’s an open question whether anyone else will emerge with the national stature and appeal to make the peace in an outright civil war that is likely to play out through the rest of the year—and very probably into the 2016 presidential campaign. Even Rep. Paul Ryan, the 2012 vice presidential nominee and erstwhile conservative darling who was one of the 199 GOP House votes against the debt-ceiling increase Tuesday (standing against Speaker John Boehner and his House leadership), remains somewhat tainted by his sweetheart deal with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray ending the government shutdown late last year. “I think it’s going to be open warfare through 2016,” says Matthew Latimer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and senior staffer for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Scottie Nell Hughes, news director for the Tea Party News Network in Nashville, Tenn., says the GOP may be fated for a replay of 2012—where candidates vying for conservative support tear each other down in the presidential primaries and the party is left with a tepidly moderate nominee—”until we see some leadership step up and say, this is how we need to act.” Hughes says the party establishment recently followed a predictable pattern by floating Jeb Bush’s name for 2016 within days of Christie’s near-downfall, as the latter was walloped by a scandal over whether his administration engaged in political retribution by deliberately causing traffic problems on the George Washington Bridge.