Simply put, the conservatives need a strong 5 or 7 members vs the commie side and the november election is do or die.
***It does not matter what happens in the November election. The republican party is putting up someone who is just as liberal, who pushed forth the precursor to Obamacare so he has no reason to knock it down, and who appoints libruls to judicial positions. No matter who wins in November, libs will be nominated to the courts.
And they need to pick the strongest advocates for the conservative, strict-constructionist view of the constitution—and then defend these to the death!
The war of words/the politics of language has it that a committed conservative is extremist while a committed liberal/progressive is fair-minded. We need to re-join that war!