Today is the calm before the storm of next week when conservatives will be involved in the marque fight of the cycle; Ted Cruz vs. David Dewhurst in Texas.  Nonetheless, there are primary elections in Arkansas and Kentucky today that will provide us with a couple pickup opportunities.

Arkansas-4 

Blue Dog Mike Ross is headed back to the Democrat kennel, creating a prime pickup opportunity for us in November.  However, it is vital that we pick the best candidate in the primary to secure at least one conservative seat in this rapidly conservative-trending state.  At present, the Republican delegation stinks:

We need to build a conservative bench in this state if we ever hope to win a conservative majority.  Tom Cotton is the man.  He was the first candidate endorsed by Red State. He is also supported by the Club for Growth and the Madison Project.  Cotton is committed to fighting the liberals in both parties.  His opponent, Beth Anne Rankin, who is supported by Mike Huckabee, will represent more of the same in this mediocre populist delegation.

Kentucky-4

In KY-4, big-government Republican Geoff Davis is retiring.  The two main candidates competing in the primary are conservative Thomas Massie and establishment-backed candidate Alecia Webb-Edgington.  Massie and his campaign staff are all veterans of the Rand Paul campaign.  He will join the small group of conservative insurgents in the House to fight against leadership.  Webb-Edgington has a mixed record in the state legislature of voting for new spending and healthcare mandates.

Moreover, we need someone who will be able to stand up to a dismal Republican delegation full of old bulls.  There is no way that Webb-Edgington would ever cross those bulls.  The problem is that Kentucky is another deep red state where the Republican representatives aren’t exactly that red:

We have a major red state statist problem in both houses of Congress.  Unfortunately, most of them breeze through the primaries with little or no opposition.  There is not a single primary opponent to any of the aforementioned members of the Arkansas and Kentucky Republican delegations.  And that includes Arkansas’s Rick Crawford, the man who has proposed class-warfare style tax increases.   The best way to combat red state statism is by electing at least one conservative from each state’s delegation.  Today’s elections will provide us with a great opportunity to install a conservative in Arkansas and Kentucky.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project