A year after a tense standoff between a Nevada rancher's armed supporters and federal land agents, Cliven Bundy is hosting a barbecue and celebration to mark the event that vaulted him into tea party stardom.

In her first appearance before a broader audience than the Tea Party, GOP Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate Diane Douglas stuck to her main topic of repealing Common Core, the state’s learning standards.

Casa Grande resident Garland Shreves is a self-described moderate Republican who is fed up with the Tea Party “destroying” the GOP brand.

The number of independents voting in the partisan primary election on Aug. 26 is expected to surge this year. And with nearly all the primary election action concentrated on the Republican side, independents are overwhelmingly choosing to vote in the GOP primary.

The battle over the heart and soul of the Republican Party is raging in a beige, West Valley ballroom. Republican Reps. Darin Mitchell and Steve Montenegro sit on the stage with Litchfield Park City Councilwoman Diane Landis, a Republican who is challenging the incumbent team in the primary election for one of the two House seats in Legislative District 13.

The results of a handful of congressional races held in six states on May 20 had national pundits declaring victory for the GOP’s mainstream candidates, and more importantly, a tell-tale loss for Tea Party candidates.

A former leader of the Maricopa County Republican Party has equated a House representative who supported Arizona’s Medicaid expansion to the French women whose heads were shaved and paraded before the public following accusations of cavorting with German soldiers during World War II.

Republican legislators facing a backlash from the conservative right for approving the expansion of Medicaid tapped into a vast network of supporters to easily outraise colleagues and opponents last year.

Hoping to douse a political firestorm that has sprung up in some conservative circles, Gov. Jan Brewer ordered state employees Friday to begin calling the state’s learning standards by a different name.

The writing has been on the wall for a while, but now it’s official – Medicaid expansion won’t be on the ballot next November.