Budget deal has earned John Boehner new enemies on the right

After four years of bitter, poisoned, polarized politics of a kind not seen since pre-Civil War days, cooler heads in Congress finally prevailed long enough to get a federal budget passed. It is a budget no one actually likes, but it is better than another government shutdown.

Does this moment of compromise and sanity portend a more productive new year for the 113thCongress? Probably not.

The budget deal went through because House Speaker John A. Boehner finally got sick of being manhandled by the absolutists in his caucus and the right-wing activist groups that pushed for the October shutdown and the ill-fated showdown over raising the debt ceiling. Boehner stopped placating the hard-liners and instead slammed them for stampeding Republicans into a boxed canyon with no exit plan.

However, the war for the soul of the Republican Party has only begun and Boehner could yet become a victim. When the House voted on the budget, 169 Republicans voted yes with the speaker. That is fairly impressive given the angry howling from the rabid conservatives at the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Heritage Action and Fox News.

Still, there were 62 tea party Republicans who went against Boehner. In the Senate, only nine GOP senators approved the budget. Thirty-six stood with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in opposition. This is not a party that has found consensus.

In the months leading up to the November congressional election, while Boehner tries to create a record his members can use against Democrats, he will also be looking over his shoulder at all the people he just enraged. How many of the members of his caucus that supported him on the budget will find themselves facing more radical primary opponents backed by money from the Koch brothers, the tea party and the right-wing activist organizations? If the GOP picks up seats, will they be filled by rational conservatives or by militants who think the word “compromise” is an expletive?

Boehner has reasserted control of his caucus. The question in 2014 will be: Can he keep it?