Liz Cheney vs. Rand Paul. Which side to choose. Hmmm….

“Instead of cutting deals with the president’s allies in Congress, we can be opposing them every step of the way,” [Cheney] said, adding, “In my view, obstructing President Obama’s policies and his agenda isn’t actually obstruction; it’s patriotism.”

In an interesting twist, one Republican senator seems especially eager to defend Enzi and help him win the primary fight. It’s not his Wyoming colleague and it’s not one of members who’s served alongside Enzi for the last two decades — it’s Rand Paul.

There’s a larger significance to this that’s worth keeping in mind.

Immediately after Cheney made her intentions clear, the Kentucky Republican wasted no time in coming to Enzi’s defense, mocking Cheney and embracing the incumbent. “I’ve told him I’ll do anything I can to help him,” Paul said of Enzi. “In fact, somebody asked me today if they could use my name, and I said I’d be happy to sign on and do a fundraiser for him.”

Is there a deep affection between the two Republican colleagues? To date, Paul and Enzi haven’t seemed especially close, though some of their committee assignments overlap. But as Dave Weigel explained in a smart piece last night, the GOP primary in Wyoming is becoming a proxy war for a larger intra-party dispute.

Reporters looking for a feud between the Cheneys and her new foe Sen. Mike Enzi have come up a little short…. The real “feud” is between the ascendant America-first Republicans represented by Paul, and the conservative hawks who’ve lost their leading role in the party.

maddowblog.msnbc.com