"With two weeks to go until the June 12 primary, conservative and moderate Republicans are fighting for control of the Virginia Senate as well as the future of a party that has been deeply divided over taxes and social issues such as abortion.

Anti-tax activists and social conservatives are mounting challenges to five incumbents in the Republican-controlled Senate, which has served as a foil for the more conservative House of Delegates and worked with two successive Democratic governors to finance government through higher taxes.

The elections come amid uncertainty about the future of the Senate because three moderate Republicans are retiring, including Senate President John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland) and H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester).

According to internal GOP polls, all of the incumbents are favored to win reelection. But pundits and GOP strategists say just one upset in the primary could cement the influence of social and economic conservatives in the General Assembly.

"This is not just a Virginia issue; this is a national issue for the Republican Party," said William Shendow, executive director of the John O. Marsh Institute for Government and Public Policy at Shenandoah University. "There are those who feel to be a true believer you have to support certain issues they support 100 percent versus those who feel there is a need for consensus."

The tension within the GOP dates to 2001, when Senate Republicans tried to block then-Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) from phasing out the car tax. Senate Republicans argued it was fiscally irresponsible.

The feuding intensified in 2004, when the GOP-led Senate teamed with then-Gov. Mark D. Warner (D) to approve tax increases to balance the budget. Two years later, many Senate Republicans aligned with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) in pushing for higher taxes to pay for transportation improvements.

Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) said the Senate has tried to "maintain a moderate approach" to make sure government is adequately funded.

"The sound bites of doing 'no tax' pledges in government is an echo from ill-informed candidates who have never had to sit down and look people in the eye who are requesting money for public education or health care," Norment said.

Conservatives hate the word "tax," and this year they are hoping Republican primary voters take their frustrations out on several GOP senators, including Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch (R-Henrico), with challenges from the right.

All House Republicans seeking reelection are unopposed in the primary.

"The current Senate voted for tax increases in 2004, and they voted for this transportation plan that is an abomination from our point of view," said Paul Jost, president of the Virginia chapter of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group.

J. Scott Leake, a strategist for the Senate Republican leadership, disputes suggestions that the incumbents have strayed from the party's principles of low taxes and limited government.

"In a national sense, and even a Virginia sense, the incumbents are to the right of center," Leake said. "Maybe to some in a narrow band of Republicans they may be moderate, but we are in the process of explaining, race by race and person by person, why that simply isn't true."

This is the second consecutive state election in which conservatives have tried to punish Republicans who supported higher taxes.

In 2005, the Virginia Conservative Action political action committee tried to unseat six of the 17 House Republicans who voted for Warner's tax package. But only one of the targeted Republicans lost, Gary A. Reese of Fairfax County.

Robin DeJarnette, the political action committee's executive director, said her group is better organized this year and has identified a half-million conservative voters.

"It is never easy to take out an incumbent -- they have the money -- but I think the momentum is with the challengers," DeJarnette said.

In several of the races, anti-tax forces have joined with frustrated social conservatives, who say the Senate has blocked much of their agenda.

Only two senators have scored 100 percent on their voting records from the Family Foundation, which advocates for what it calls traditional values, compared with 35 House members who backed the foundation's issues all of the time.

"We know something needs to happen because for too long pro-family legislation has been blocked in the Senate," Victoria Cobb, president of the Richmond-based foundation, said last week as the group released the scores.

Because not all Virginia nominating contests are held the same day, there have already been two high-profile fights between conservative and moderate GOP Senate candidates.

And each side can claim a victory.

On May 19, conservative Patricia Phillips secured the GOP nomination to challenge Sen. Mark R. Herring (D), who represents eastern Loudoun and far western Fairfax counties.

Phillips, former Virginia director of the Christian public policy group Concerned Women for America, defeated moderate Republican John Andrews II, a developer who dumped $200,000 of his own money into the race. Phillips is closely aligned with former delegate Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), who used to hand out plastic fetuses to symbolize his fervor against abortion.

On the same day, GOP activists in the Northern Neck selected moderate Richard Stuart as the party nominee to replace Chichester in District 28. Stuart, an attorney, defeated three more-conservative candidates, including John Van Hoy, who had the backing of the Club for Growth and the Virginia Conservative Action political action committee.

Chichester, who backed Stuart, said the contest proves the majority of Republican voters want moderate candidates who will reach out to Democrats.

"It could be the beginning of the end for this extreme element of our party," said Chichester, who noted Stuart wouldn't sign a no-new-tax pledge.

But the senators being challenged aren't taking any chances, and in many cases they are doing all they can to convince voters that they embrace the GOP tenets of lower taxes and limited government.

Stosch, who has raised nearly four times as much money as his opponent, Joseph E. Blackburn, has been blanketing Richmond airwaves with a commercial touting himself as "a leader in the fight to cut taxes and spending."

"I never forget it is your money that Richmond is trying to spend," Stosch says in the ad, noting he has supported 33 tax cuts during his career.

Boyd Marcus, Blackburn's campaign manager, said Stosch is trying to "fool" the voters into thinking he is a conservative.

"In an election year, he is a tax-cutting conservative, and in a non-election year, he is a big-spending moderate," Marcus said.

John Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, a conservative think tank, said the battle for control of the Republican Party will continue regardless of the outcome of the primaries.

"Sometimes I think that the Republican Party may have to take a step backwards before it can become a force again," Taylor said." (Tim Craig, The Washington Post, May 27, 2007)