Who in the world is focusing on some little known congressional primaries in the midst of the Republican National Convention?

We are.  And you should too.

Unfortunately, many of those we elected to the House in 2010 were not the Tea Partiers we thought they were.  In fact, a number of them have become conduits for leadership instead of stewards of the Constitution.  Honestly, we haven’t been too successful in replacing these lackluster freshmen this cycle.

On Tuesday, we will have the best opportunity of the season to rid ourselves of one such character in AZ-4 and replace him with one of the most solid conservatives of the 2012 cycle.  Like many freshmen, Paul Gosar ran on a platform of limited government.  Yet despite the fact that he is surrounded by strong conservatives in Arizona, Paul Gosar is, by far, the lowest performing member of the delegation.  Gosar was the only member of the Republican delegation to vote for the debt ceiling deal and all the spending bills that violated the GOP pledge.  He even refused to sign the Cut, Cap, and Balance pledge.  Based on his voting record, it’s par for the course.  He doesn’t feel we should focus so much on the Constitution either.

State Senator Ron Gould is trying to unseat Gosar, and we should all support him.  We rarely have the luxury to nominate someone for a House seat who has already done everything we would want of him in his previous position.  Gould has an inviolable record in the state Senate and has stood up to his own party when prominent members were directing them on a tax and spend path. When Governor Jan Brewer proposed an increase in the sales tax before a joint session of the legislature, Gould walked out in protest.

While we are all hoping that Romney defeats Obama in November, we must prepare for the inevitable day when we are forced to hold the line against big government policies of a Republican president.  Ron Gould is the sort of Congressman we need to keep elected Republicans in line.  I like to view Ron Gould as a Jeff Flake who is also solid on social issues.

Tomorrow is ostensibly the last day of contested and consequential primaries this cycle.  Let’s bag one more for the Tea Party.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project