Rep. King takes sides in ideological split

WASHINGTON -- As Republicans struggle over selecting a presidential nominee, the splits in the Grand Old Party are evident nearly everywhere, including in New York.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) recently publicly criticized House GOP freshmen for rejecting the Senate's two-month payroll-tax-cut extension -- an unusual attack that hit most of his seven New York Republican colleagues, all in their first terms, in Congress.

"The real deal is that there is a civil war going on in the Republican Party between conservatives and the establishment," said Frank Seabrook, who runs a Long Island tea party blog called the Liberty Report.

That divide appears in the resistance by tea party and conservative Republicans to the GOP establishment's presidential hopeful, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

It shows up on Capitol Hill, where freshman GOP lawmakers have forced four showdowns on federal spending in the past year, analysts say.

And it recently popped up in New York's Republican delegation to Congress, with King, the 10-term veteran legislator, parting ways with many of the first-year lawmakers elected with tea party support.

It came to a head, King said, in fight over the payroll tax holiday the week before Christmas. The Senate had approved a bipartisan two-month deal, but the House GOP freshmen balked and tried to stop it.

Five New Yorkers, including Reps. Tom Reed of Cornell and Nan Hayworth of Bedford, came out publicly against the deal. Only Reps. Chris Gibson of Kinderhook and Richard Hanna of Barneveld joined King in backing it.

After heavy pressure from the Senate and other GOP leaders, the freshman bloc finally gave in and OKd it Dec. 22.

The next day, King went on radio to criticize the bloc for creating a "self-inflicted wound," undermining House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and, quoting Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly, looking like "pinheads."

Reed, Hayworth and others declined to comment on King's remarks. King said he didn't want to talk about his colleagues from New York.

Still, King faulted the bloc, saying, "You have to have some realism. . . . You have to understand the political impact of the next battle."

King has little to say about the tea party, which he credits for its energy. "There's a lot of good people in it," King said. "That's about it."

GOP political consultant Jay Townsend said the divide arises from experience and goals.

Unlike longtime politician King, Townsend said, "If you look at the freshmen class, there are [a] limited number who are career political types. They are on a mission."

There's also political pressure, said Republican pollster and adviser Michael Dawidziak. "A lot of these freshmen have got to worry about the tea party running a candidate against them," he said.

Yet the GOP isn't engaged in a scorched-earth struggle.

Boehner named Reed and Hayworth to the conference committee to work out a yearlong payroll tax extension.

And the tea party has no intention of running a candidate against King, Seabrook said, even though he's a "deal maker" and a "big union guy."

Tea party member James Ahlers, a retired federal worker in Massapequa, said, "I think there's a lot of areas where we're supportive of him."

King also benefits from his outspoken nature, Townsend said: "He says what he thinks."

Seabrook shrugged off King's pointed criticism, saying, "If you don't have thick skin, you won't last in politics."