The Republican party has a very questionable history when it comes to applying the ideas of classical liberalism. Every election cycle we hear speeches and read party communications touting limiting the size of government, cutting spending, and the free market. But, when they actually come to power on the national level and in several states such as Kansas, Republicans never cut the spending, they never end government programs and they never balance the budget.
The Republicans think that they can count on the votes of the conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians because they are relatively better than the Democrats. The Republicans believe that they have the edge with liberty loving people when they run against the Democrats. They are mostly correct but we have a counter-move, we can make it hard for the incumbents to win reelection. We can go to the primaries and vote for the candidate to the right of the incumbent. The challenger may have long odds to win in a typical race but if he/she gets support from the liberty-minded voters he/she will have a better chance. We don’t force every incumbent out but if we forced a few of them out, the rest will have to behave better to avoid the same fate.
The Republicans have to choose between liberty and statism, and the only way to force them to make the choice is to challenge as many of them in the primaries as possible. We don’t have to choose between a moderate Republican and a Democrat when we can make the choice between a liberty-minded Republican and a Democrat.