As families start prepping for next week’s Thanksgiving celebration, Cornell student Max Schecter has a few thoughts about potential political discussions that may occur around dinner tables and points out they won’t all be Democratic vs Republican debates.

Democrats Turn on Obama(care): If you’ve been following the rollout of Obamacare, you know there have been some difficulties (that’s putting it nicely). Although everyone expected problems at the beginning of the healthcare exchanges, the technical difficulties have dwarfed what was expected. Even Bill Clinton is calling on President Barak Obama to try and secure his pledge that “if you like your healthcare you can keep it.” Vulnerable Democrats in the House and Senate are getting nervous and worrying that, like in the 2010 elections when the Republicans routed Democrats electorally, Republicans could win big based on Obamacare’s shortcomings. More than 20 Democratic House members voted for a bill that was Republican-proposed to “fix” Obamacare. The party may be turning on the president.

This intra-party feud is less important for substance than it is for style. For months the Democratic Party has been rallying behind President Obama as the Republicans shot themselves in the foot with the government shutdown. Now that Obamacare is scaring people, the Democrats appear willing to turn on their own in order to protect their reelection chances.

The Ultimate Tea Party/Establishment Fight: One cannot write about intra-party fighting without discussing the Tea Party. 2014 looks poised to give us one of the most quintessential and illustrative tea party versus establishment fights we have seen to date. In 2014, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is running for reelection in Kentucky. McConnell has fought the Obama administration at every turn, but his support for bailouts and general Washington insider-ness left him open to a tea party challenge from businessman Matt Bevin.

…Intra-party fights are what change parties. More so than public posturing and speeches, these are the disagreements that politicians and their advisors argue over behind closed doors. Republicans wrestling with gay marriage, Democrats deciding how loyal to Obamacare to be and establishment candidates attempting to avoid the tea party traps — the results of these internal fights will guide the broader, more public fights down the road.