I keep looking out the window of Mark's Den and into the Cornfield apprehensively.

I am expecting to see Paul Revere riding through the furrowed fields shouting, "They're coming! They're coming!" Or maybe the Lost in Space robot with his dire warning, "Danger Will Robinson! Danger!"

The  traditional, centered, establishment Republican Party is being assailed  on three fronts. These three factions are threatening to bring an end  to our current two-party system by bringing about the death of what once  was the Grand Old Party.

Then  again, the winning faction may in fact breathe life back into a party  that in the last three years has often seemed to be in its death throes.

Of  course there could be a miracle of miracles and the old-line, moderates  of the party could repel the attacks. Perhaps the long-suffering middle  will get a second wind and roar back.

Who knows?

The  battlelines have been drawn. A war is going on for the heart and soul  of the Republican Party. Yet it's hard to tell if the factions want to  keep hope alive or are preparing for the embalming.

FACTION ONE:

Social Conservatives seem to be intent on killing the party one state at a time.

From  actions most recently in Virginia last night when GOP lawmakers showed  their bigotry and ignorance in refusing to confirm a distinguished  prosecutor to a judgeship because the qualified candidate is openly gay,  although he is backed by the Republican Governor. That was the reason  given for him not to be a judge.

Then  you have that same legislative body's recent legislation on vaginal  probes. Or in Texas in its fight with Planned Parenthood funding and a  governor who verbally attackgs gays on national television.

You  have Rick Santorum getting in arguments with college students and  bringing up extreme arguments involving the basest of perditions over  the issue of same-gender marriage or even the right for GLBT to exist.

Social  Conservatives are alienating an estimated 10% of the population who  make up the GLBT. In addition, women are also feeling as if Social  Conservatives want nothing better than women to be barefoot, pregnant  and in the kitchen.

Live  and let live is not part of their belief system. This faction seems  intent in losing this year's presidential election to prove some point.

FACTION TWO:

Tea Party Fiscal Conservatives who are hellbent on having it their way or no way at all. The nation  loses its credit rating or the government is shut down, no problem as  long as it's their way or the highway.

Most  recently this was put front and center by one of their candidates, who  is now running to be Indiana's new senator, when he remarked, "I have a mindset that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view."

The  gridlock that has developed on Capitol Hill is threatening to make  Congress, an equal branch of government, ineffective and grinding to a  complete halt. Matters not the people back home are the ones losing out  and that the voters have grown disenchanted of what once was an august  body.

Compromise is not part of the lexicon.

FACTION THREE:

The Liberty Movement, the child of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, has been working the system from the inside, taking over state conventions and slating delegates to the national convention.

At  times the members of this faction are vocal, loud, uncompromising, and  can become quite raucus and disorderly. With a fevered pitch on monetary  policy and the Federal Reserve, the Liberty Movement means a hostile  takeover of the Republican Party.

The  movement is following a course of action that occured about three  decades ago when Evangelicals staged a hostile takeover of the party,  but instead were assimilated like the Borg.

The  movement looks to be on course to complete the take over within the  next four to eight years. Turning the GOP towards a decidedly  libertarian slant and moving away from the traditional hawkish position  that has stood for decades. The movement and its leader call for what  once was known as isolationism.

There is no acceptable candidate, but one with the last name Paul.

Like it or not...this war is real. This war and its outcome could determine the survival of what once was the Grand Old Party.

Question is can the center, those moderates, the establishment repel the assaults?

Can the established, old-line party be able to assimilate and diffuse the three factions?

From the Cornfield, I am not sure I recognize the Republican Party any more.