A reader inquires about yesterday’s note on the conservative-versus-conservative battle in Colorado’s fifth district:

Should the party intervene in such situations? …[I]f you have many conservative candidates, have some of them actually relocate to other districts… or it would be too high handed for a party to even get some candidates to drop out?

The simple fact is that “the party” is incapable of making anyone do anything. Powerful figures can try, but in the end it all comes down to the individual.

Sometimes the establishment gets it right. According to legend, Dennis Hastert tried to persuade Jack Ryan (no relation to Illinois Republicans George Ryan or Jim Ryan) to drop out of the Illinois Republican Senate primary in 2004 before Ryan’s embarrassing divorce files were released. Hastert failed, which is probably the reason we have Barack Obama running for president today. Sometimes the individual beats the establishment. Bob Dole certainly didn’t want Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) to run for his Senate seat against his hand-picked replacement, Sheila Frahm (R) in 1996. Brownback ran anyway and won.

This is what makes intra-party politics so interesting. If it were all up to a party conspiracy in a smoky backroom, Hillary Clinton would have dropped out of the presidential race at least a month ago. Inevitably, several strong-willed individuals duke it out with one another. Their primary weapons are their their own political power (if they have any) and their ability to manipulate public opinion against fellow party members. One can win with sanctity (very rare) or with brutal pragmatism (more common) — but most everyone in Washington today gets here by mixing the two.

For a truly excellent tutorial on party political machinations at their worst, watch the premiere hour-long episode of Yes, Prime Minister. It is a delightfully cynical British comedy from the 1980s about a malleable British MP who suddenly and unexpectedly becomes Prime Minister. I’ve always wished that someone would create an American equivalent to this show. By nature, Americans hold the correct view that man is fundamentally good, but they also forget that power corrupts. This is why they so prefer the far less realistic (but heart-warming) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Meanwhile, speaking of intra-party politics, another important Republican primary contest is coming up in Texas on April 8. As expected, the House Conservatives Fund is backing Pete Olson (R) over Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (R) in the race for Tom DeLay’s old House seat, now in Democratic hands. In this case, “the party” would have forced Sekula-Gibbs out of the race long ago if it were able. But again, there is no realistic way of excluding a candidate from an election in which she has every right to participate.