In disputes such as this, the famous rule propounded by William F. Buckley provides reasonable guidance: support the 'rightward-most viable candidate.'

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The news earlier this week that Liz Cheney would abandon her pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat in Wyoming — a quest which found her launching a primary challenge to long-time Republican incumbent Mike Enzi — generated a predictable overreaction from members of the mainstream media.

Salon’s Joan Walsh — a woman who is paid to be wrong in print about everything — declared the moment indicative of “the fizzling of the Tea Party as an oppositional force.” As is her wont, Ms. Walsh is making the wish the father of the thought.

That the dust-up in Wyoming doesn’t indicate quite the epochal shift that Walsh hopes for, however, doesn’t mean that it’s without significance. It underscores a question that has been nagging at Republicans consistently during the ascension of the Tea Party movement over the past half-decade: Namely, when do conservatives stand on principle and when do they make concessions to political reality?

This is a question that will be particularly salient in 2014, as we prepare for the third straight election cycle in which conservative challengers will take aim at Republican incumbents or try to move open seats further to the right.

By now, the arguments of both sides are well-rehearsed. Tea Party supporters claim that winning seats for the GOP is a fairly meaningless exercise if the new crop of elected Republicans in Washington bows to a bipartisan consensus that, at most, will entertain the idea of slowing the growth of government, not actually restraining it.

Their critics, however, usually respond that an insistence on ideological purity costs Republicans seats in jurisdictions that would otherwise be winnable — and that shrunken party ranks do nothing to advance the cause of freedom.

In disputes such as this, the famous rule propounded by William F. Buckley provides reasonable guidance: support the “rightward-most viable candidate.” As we’ll see in a moment, that calculation partially turns on where the election is held.

Before getting there, however, it’s important to note that ideology isn’t the only salient factor. There’s a lot packed into the word “viable.” It also encompasses personality and priorities. If a candidate is going to spend an entire campaign mopping up embarrassing gaffes, they’re not feasible, regardless of beliefs. Similarly, anyone who organizes their campaign around marginalia or impossible dreams is also going to be an electoral liability.

A candidate may dream of repealing the 17th Amendment and returning the selection of U.S. senators to state legislatures, for instance, but that’s not likely to be a message that drives a campaign to success. Successful politicians must always keep one eye on the Overton Window – the range of ideas the public will accept. They can attempt to move it, but they cannot ignore it.

Having said all that, let’s assume a competent candidate, someone you’d be happy to see represent you on the campaign trail and in the halls of Congress. How then do you decide whether to back a more middle-of-the-road candidate or a conservative insurgent? All things being equal, the temperament of your local electorate is the best guide.
 
Look at the major wins that Tea Party candidates have racked up in recent years: the victories of figures such as Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz. What do all of these senators have in common? They each hail from reliably red states (Kentucky, Utah and Texas, respectively).

Now, look at the elections where Tea Party candidates have been blamed for costing the GOP seats (sometimes unfairly). They’ve been in places like Delaware, Colorado, Nevada, Missouri and Indiana. What do these states have in common? They’re all either purple swing states or — in the case of Delaware — deep blue bastions of liberalism.

With that analysis in mind, both sides — the Tea Party and the Establishment, if you want to use the somewhat misleading nomenclature of the day — should have the same incentives: Run candidates based on core conservative convictions in places that are friendly to Republicans, while running candidates with more of a focus on electability in states that are more centrist or liberal.

In fact, there’s a template for just this approach. The huge Democratic majorities produced in the 2006 and 2008 elections owed partially to the strategic decision by Rahm Emanuel (then-chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) to favor ideologically heterodox candidates in swing areas, while allowing died-in-the-wool liberals to compete in areas of Democratic strength.

Aping this approach would be in the interest of everyone within the GOP. It would bring the party more seats — and thus increased influence — in Congress, while also guaranteeing that the GOP’s conservative spine is stiffened. The either/or approach is beloved by Democrats, who like nothing more than to see Republicans divided. A both/and approach, by contrast, could leave President Obama’s liberal minions dis-empowered — and allow the long, hard work of reining in government to begin.