The PI.com's Chris Grygiel and talk-show host John Carlson, writing at Crosscut, offer widely divergent views about the significance of new state Republican Party chair Kirby Wilbur, a conservative former talk-show host himself.

First, Grygiel:

[Wilbur] will almost certainly move the state GOP further to the right. This weekend showed that McKenna doesn't control his own party, which is dominated by rural and right-leaning folks who wanted one of their own to direct things heading into the 2012 elections. There's now a very real possibility that McKenna will face a high-profile opponent from within the GOP (paging Clint Didier). In the coming months McKenna is going to have to shore up his right flank even more than he already has. McKenna is one of the attorneys general suing the federal government over the new health care reform law, a move widely seen as a nod to the restive conservative ranks. But McKenna's opposition to Obamacare will hurt him with Independents and Democrats, a portion of which he'll have to win over if he has any chance of being elected. [...]

This was not a good weekend for McKenna.

(See also: The PI's Joel Connelly, who says there's "no room in today's GOP" for the likes of the "conciliatory" "greenie" Ronald Reagan. Just stop reading before you get to his recollections about a "nabob" for the Mondale campaign who appeared on the "Today" Show---27 years ago).

Now for Carlson:

Wilbur strongly adheres to the Big Tent philosophy of Republicanism, which believes that you can’t win a legislative majority by running a Whitman County conservative in Kirkland and vice-versa.  He often paraphrases Ronald Reagan (he’s on the board of the foundation that saved and preserved the Reagan Ranch near Santa Barbara) that someone who agrees with him 80 percent of the time is not his enemy. A devout pro-lifer, Wilbur nevertheless has supported many pro-choice Republicans over the years.