Infighting within the state GOP has weakened the party so badly that it is verging on irrelevant, a former party chairman says — despite its overwhelming dominance in the legislature and its decade-long lock on the governor’s office.

Other Republican leaders charge that current party Chairman Jim Greer and, by default, Gov. Charlie Crist are out of sync with what grass-roots Republicans want.

“It would be hard to imagine us being any more impotent than we appear to be right at this point,” said former state Republican Chairman Tom Slade, who headed the party from 1993 to 1999. That was a period when the GOP took over the state House and Senate and sent Jeb Bush to the governor’s mansion.

Greer flexed his political muscles this year when he tried to use a parliamentary procedure to hamper former state House Speaker Marco Rubio’s candidacy to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez. Crist had jumped into the Senate race in May, garnering Greer’s support immediately.

That transformed what had been a whisper campaign against Greer into public criticism from county leaders and others throughout the state, who said the chairman had gone too far.

Rubio later characterized the Senate GOP primary as a battle for the “heart and soul” of the Republican Party in Florida.

But Greer, hand-picked by Crist, says the party is doing just fine and blames reports of its demise on a few disgruntled but vocal outliers.

“I don’t think that the party has anywhere near the problems that some are promoting in the state. In fact, I think this party in Florida is very strong and I see it each and every day,” Greer said in a telephone interview.

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Fueled by a recent Orlando Sentinel column advising that the state GOP wise up or continue to lose its domination of Florida politics, the RPOF is striking back.

National committeeman Paul Senft penned a rebuttal to Jane Healy’s column asserting that the Republican Party of Florida is just fine, thanks very much.

Despite Barack Obama’s Florida win in last year’s presidential election, Republicans held on to down-ticket seats and picked up a Congressional seat, ousting former Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney from Palm Beach County, Senft pointed out.

And while it’s true that GOP voter registration is slipping, that’s nothing new in Florida, Senft wrote.

So what if the Dems have also reversed their years-long fundraising slump.

Not to worry, according to Senft.

“If Democrats couldn’t produce down-ticket results in a year with more money, resources and momentum than they have ever had, I don’t see how they’ll do it in 2010,” he wrote.

But Senft’s op-ed may do little to quell dissension in a party whose dirty laundry is increasingly being aired in public.

RPOF Chairman Jim Greer has earned the wrath of the right-wing “Liberty Caucus,” a conservative group of libertarians whose leaders are being targeted by Greer for ouster at the upcoming convention.

Like many other conservatives, Greer ticked off the caucus by his early endorsement of pal Gov. Charlie Crist in the U.S. Senate race and his efforts to quash a GOP primary with former House Speaker Marco Rubio.

Meanwhile the St. Johns County GOP are trying to oust the Liberty Caucus’ state chairman, Will Pitts, from the party and remove other critics from their committee posts.

Greer’s strong-arm tactics and dismissal of right-wing darling Rubio coupled with growing dissatisfaction among die-hard Republicans with Crist’s moderate stance have left the party in disarray, critics within the party charge.

They say the party leadership is out of touch with the base and this could hurt them in next year’s elections.

The grievances against the rogue Republicans will be heard this weekend.