North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District provides the quintessential battleground between go-along to get-along Republicans and small government conservatives.

Richard Hudson, a Capitol Hill careerist, returned home to North Carolina from Washington, DC to run for Congress to go back to Congress. He is a Republican careerist — just like so many of the Republicans in Capitol Hill who have helped drive up the nations’ debt. Just read his own biography from his own website:

Richard worked for the 1996 Richard Vinroot for Governor campaign and later served as Communications Director of the North Carolina Republican Party. He was then named District Director for Congressman Robin Hayes and led the Congressman’s Concord and Rockingham offices for six years. In 2005, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) named Richard Chief of Staff and he later served in the same capacity for Congressman John Carter (R-TX). In 2008, Richard was named Campaign Manager of Pat McCrory for Governor. In 2009, he was appointed Chief of Staff to Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX) and served in that role for over two years.

When he went back to North Carolina, he went back and did something called “strategic consulting,” which is DC careerist speak for using his Washington connections. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Eric Cantor and his Young Guns PAC are pouring more money into this race. Why do they want Richard Hudson? Because he was a team player as a staffer and they know he’ll be a team player as a congressman. Just one of the guys on the same team that helped get us to $16 trillion in national debt.

On the other hand, Dr. Scott Keadle is not a careerist in Washington. Scott Keadle is not a lobbyist. Scott Keadle is dentist. He’s the type of citizen politician we always say we want — a Rand Paul type who got involved because he sees the country going to hell in a hand basket, not because he wanted to go back to Washington as the boss instead of the staffer.

Between the two of them, Scott Keadle has a record, not just a resume. His record is as a county commissioner in local government standing up for small businesses and against tax increases. We know where he stands based on what he has already done. All we know about Richard Hudson is that he is a creature of Washington who the Washington crowd wants back.

The most destructive thing to ever happen to the GOP was to be overrun with pro-life statists — Republicans who are perfectly happy to preside over an expansion of government and debt for their own political allies, but they love them some babies.

Unless conservatives are willing to fight for people like Scott Keadle against Eric Cantor and the coalition of pro-life statists who won’t actually cut spending, we deserve to lose.