The Republicans have drawn the district lines with so much of skew and structural advantage very few of the ultra conservatives are in danger of losing their seats, no matter how extreme and how damaging they are to the country and the economy. They worry only about the Republican primary, not the general election.
Nate Silver andSam Wang have quantified it and measured it scientifically.
In the long term, the demographics are against the Republicans and if they insist on following this path they would lose big. But long term is long time away and in the mean time these kooks can really do serious damage to the country and the economy. At this point we Democrats have to come up with a strategy for the short term. 2014, 2016, 2018 ... time frames.
What this Republican gerrymandering has done is to concentrate the Democrats into a few districts and maintain smaller but comfortable margins for Republicans in many districts. That means the number of Democrats in these districts fall short of the Republican numbers by only a small amount.
Even if half of these Democrats vote in the Republican primary, they will form the crucial winning bloc. If the states have open primary they can simply choose to vote on the Republican primary. If they have to register as Independents or Republican to vote in the Republican primary, let us encourage them to do so. The Republican margin in the house is just over 30. All we have to do is to target some 20 districts and flip them.
Only when the hard line foaming in the mouth crazy Republicans see a primary challenge that is really threatening, they would reconsider their positions. Let us find 20 districts where Democrats can vote in the Republican primary, and develop some grassroots campaigning to contact our friends, relatives and well wishers there and persuade them to vote in the Republican primary. Change party registrations, if necessary. Changing party registration takes time, so we need get working on this project soon.
Our aim is not to win those districts for the Democrats. Our goal is simply to keep these crazy wingnuts off the House of Representatives. If we can't get the House for Democrats, at least let us get it for the saner part of the Republican party.