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How does someone griping about a $1,000 contribution lead to a story on the GOP escalating its warfare against Richard Morgan, a fellow Republican? I'm going to make you wade through a pretty long post to find out:

I got a phone call yesterday from someone upset that Ed McMahan, a North Carolina national committeeman for the Republican Party, had given a political donation to Democrat and State Treasurer Richard Moore. (A short profile of McMahan from the state GOP can be found here. Click on this link and then scroll down two spots.)

When asked about it, Guilford County Republican Party Chairman Marcus Kindley said the move amounts to treason against the party. Moore was running against a Republican from Guilford County (who has now moved out of state).

Folks who had talked to McMahan said yesterday that a clerical error sent funds from his personal campaign committee rather than a PAC that gives to bipartisan causes that he controls for his company. (That's the same account he gave the News & Observer as well.) The people who are upset about that are upset about that. Those who are not, say it's a simple mistake.

(I think the bigger discussion here might be that there are folks involved in politics who can miss-send $1,000 from a campaign treasurery and not know it goes missing until a campaign finance report comes out. But that's for another day.)

After a few conversations about the McMahan thing, it became apparent why this $1,000 donation was being talked about in the first place.

Click here for the story it lead to.

It's no secret that the GOP party establishment and Richard Morgan, a Republican of Moore County, don't get along. Moore infamous in GOP circles for forging power-sharing arrangements in the state House with Democratic Speaker Jim Black. Morgan was elected co-Speaker in 2003 and serves this session as Speaker Pro Temp, a less powerful but still influential post.

The story that ran in today's paper tells how the Republican Party is set to openly intervene in a Morgan's GOP primary. Messing with primaries is something generally considered beyond the pale for parties - something that leads to too much bad blood. (To be fair, in this case, the bad blood is present in abundance already.)

The GOP party chairman has sometime spoken out on a race, as he did when Republican-turned-Democrat-turned Republican Mike Decker ran for re-election in Forsyth County. But putting the full financial and human resources of the party up against someone in a primary seems to be something of a different animal.

Because he called back late in the day, I didn't get a lot of Morgan's comments to me in the paper - except to show that he was defiant. Here are a few others sentiments that he relayed:

• He called the potential for party interference in his primary as "very dangerous precedent to set."
• He blamed the party move on "extreme" elements of the party, singling out Art Pope, a wealthy GOP operator.
• Of the executive committee members that decided to take action against him, Morgan said: "They have only heard from a folks who are very disgruntled, untruthful, and misleading...They are looking for some sort of revenge. Revenge does no good for the Republican Party."
• He points out that he won election as co-speaker in 2003 and Speaker Pro Temp this year with the votes of Republicans in the House.
• He said he wasn't worried about his re-election chances because his fund-raising organization was just as robust, if not more so, than the state party's.

For Guilford County folks, one of the biggest beneficiaries of a House without Morgan would be John Blust. Blust has not been shy in his criticism of Morgan. And from an observer’s vantage, it doesn't look like Morgan has been shy against using his influence to make Blust's life difficult. Blust didn't get a bill passed before the "cross-over" deadline, meaning that most legislation that he has proposed is effectively dead. And when Morgan is in control of House meetings, I can't think of an instance where he has allowed Blust to debate a bill or resolution during the past year.

Okay Republicans and other political watchers, I've had my say. Now you have yours. Comment below.

(Update: If you're dying to know more about the McMahan thing, click here for the Charlotte Observer story. (Registration required, if you haven't already.)