Yeah, that's my concern as well, though there's also evidence that the Democrats, having had a large tent full of so many different points of view for so long, are better-equipped to herd all of those cats, whereas the GOP is much more vulnerable to a fissure along ideological lines developing into an all-out civil war, precisely because they expect the insurgents to follow orders, and won't know what to do when they disobey.

I can see some of this happening with the Tea Party freshmen. The GOP leadership expects its members to fall in line and obey Reagan's 11th commandment, and to do what a rational politician would do to keep their jobs and win the war, not just a few battles. But the freshman Tea Party class isn't playing the long game -- they seem to be thinking this is their bite at the apple, and they're going to swing for the fences, damn the torpedoes. (I loves me some mixed metaphors.) What's scarier is that the establishment GOP leadership can't really do much about it now that House rules forbid earmarks -- if someone was off the reservation before, the speaker could offer them a bridge project or defense appropriation to get them back, but what leverage do they have now? The leadership also can't use sticks instead of carrots, because Boehner's grip on the leadership over Tea Party-friendly Eric Cantor is tenuous at best, even after eating Obama's lunch on the debt deal.

I still think the GOP are in a much more advantageous position, especially with the very difficult (for the Democrats) Senate map in 2012. But the mixture of corporate-friendly establishment GOP old hands and upstart nihilistic Tea Party newbies is a really volatile mix that could blow up at any time, whereas the Democrats are actually more ideologically cohesive than they've ever been after losing many of their purple seats in the 2010 elections.