Republican Party Splitting?

 Behind the scenes it appears the Republican leadership could be splintering. Most see Boehner and McConnell's compromise as a sell-out? Or was it the only choice to drink out of the same cup as Obama, Reid and Pelosi? Read for yourself the cloakroom whisperings:

Hmmmmmm.... From The Guardian:
"House speakers typically don't even vote at all unless it is necessary to break a tie. So it may have been a clarifying moment when speaker of the House John Boehner and House majority leader Eric Cantor parted ways on the deal that ended the long national nightmare known as the fiscal cliff. Boehner voted for the bipartisan agreement negotiated between Vice-President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; Cantor breathed the final moments of life into the opposition.

In fact, the House Republican leadership team split right down the middle on the legislation. House majority whip Kevin McCarthy voted against; House Republican conference chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers sided with Boehner and voted in favor.

House conservatives have increasingly chafed under Boehner's leadership. Four independent-minded fiscal conservatives – Justin Amash of Michigan, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, Walter Jones of North Carolina, and David Schweikert of Arizona – were purged from their preferred committee assignments for their unpredictable voting behavior. Secret "scorecards" were allegedly used in making the decision, though this has been denied publicly. Conservatives helped defeat Boehner's "Plan B" compromise on the fiscal cliff before Christmas.

The problem is that House Republicans are stifled by a Democratic Senate and president. Many of them hail from safe, conservative districts. A critical mass were elected in 2010 with high hopes for cutting government spending. Boehner's efforts to work within these constraints have not endeared him to some restless Republicans.

Enter Eric Cantor. In closed-door meetings of the House Republican conference, he expressed his opposition to the Senate bill before Boehner had taken a stand. He expressed the sense of most Republicans that it raised taxes without getting any meaningful spending cuts in return, that it added to the deficit, and that it created the precedent that any cuts must be paired with tax hikes.

President Obama's team released a statement that morning suggesting they agreed with that last point, practically singing, "Ding-dong, Grover Norquist's dead."

Cantor had tried to establish himself as the right flank of the debt ceiling negotiations in the summer of 2011, famously irritating the president. But many conservatives regarded this as ambition talking more than principle. When the majority leader said out loud what most Republicans were thinking about the fiscal cliff bill, however, there was admiration.

As reports of the meeting leaked out, observers began to wonder if a Cantor coup against Boehner was brewing. Cantor's spokesman, Doug Heye, took to Twitter to quell the rumors:

"Majority Leader Cantor stands with @SpeakerBoehner. Speculation otherwise is silly, non-productive and untrue." Doug Heye

Six hours later, Boehner and Cantor took opposite positions in the roll call vote."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/02/eric-cantor-no-vote-fiscal-cliff