From the Web site of the Texas Tea Party Patriots PAC: Well respected Conservative Ken Paxton, of McKinney will announce formally he is running for Texas Speaker of the House tomorrow. Ken has over a 95% conservative record and draws support from across the State. This comes in light of a letter from District 5 State Rep Bryan Hughes withdrawing support from Straus steaming [sic] from threats of re-districting consequences for State Rep Dan Flynn and State Rep. Elect Erwin Cain because they were not in support…. The Republican Party is beginning to see just what the power of the Tea Party movement is all about in the state of Texas. This is just the beginning. * * * * This divide-and-conquer strategy depends on members believing the Bryan Hughes charges that unnamed Straus supporters are already planning to punish people in redistricting. It is unlikely to work, but it appears that the anti-Straus forces are going to try to chip away at Straus’s numbers by putting other candidates forward who might get a few pledges each away from Straus. Craddick used that strategy in 2007 by peeling Paxton and Laubenberg away from McCall. I wonder, in retrospect, whether it was a mistake for the Straus forces to meet with Michael Quinn Sullivan earlier this week. This is war. There is no use trying to negotiate with an intractable opposition.