ACTION

I've commented before about the need for us to get on top of the 2014 elections immediately; there are many Congressional districts where good conservatives either have a fighting chance or where a conservative challenger needs to be identified and supported in next year's GOP primaries.  The first step in that process is to assess the 2012 election results and the resulting representation district by district in every state.

In the image below I've done that for my home state of Arizona, which has 9 Congressional districts.  (My apologies if it's hard to read; I'm far from expert at this sort of online thing!)

In the 2012 elections, two formerly Republican districts (1 and 9) ended up with a Democrat representative because the Republican candidate lost votes to a Libertarian 3rd party candidate.  In both cases, the losing Republican appeared to be a fairly strong conservative.  Why, aside from arrogance, ideological perfectionism, or deliberate sabotage, did there need to be a Libertarian candidate in these races?  The GOP committeemen covering this district need to be working with local Libertarian party leaders to gain their backing for good candidates.  Surely Tea Party members in those districts have a role to play here.

In two other races, the losing Republican was a solid conservative who lost by a very slim margin.  With just a little more energetic door-to-door support, these candidates might have won their races.  These districts need to be high priorities for the Arizona Tea Party; we need to work with the local committeemen to get more legs and faces out on the streets to better support these candidates.

Finally in district 4, we have a Republican who won in a huge landslide, but who has a rather poor voting record as a conservative.  This--a strongly Republican district with a moderate incumbent--is a good opportunity for a Tea Party challenge in the next primary.

With some hard work, good candidates, and a little luck, it's conceivable Arizona's House contingent could be turned from a humiliating 5 to 4 Democrat majority to a 7 to 2 Republican majority--and conservatives to boot.  That may be too good to imagine, but anything is better than what we're stuck with now.  We need to take victories where we can get them, and keep trying where at first we don't succeed.

I'm in district 5; my representative is a good conservative.  I'll do what I can to help in those other districts where opportunities exist.  I encourage my fellow Tea Partiers to take similar initiative in their own states, identifying districts where opportunities exist and taking action on those opportunities.