Roach Out of CA-50 Race

Ending nearly a month of speculation, conservative Republican Eric Roach announced today that he will not contest Brian Bilbray in the June 6 Republican primary.

Roach spent the last several weeks courting and being courted by Republican true believers, who were upset with the prospect of a "moderate" Republican taking convicted Republican felon Randy "Duke" Cunningham's place in congress.

Influential conservative blogger, Jon Fleischman had nothing but disdain for fellow Republican Bilbray.

Brian Bilbray earned a reputation in his three terms in Congress as being a very moderate Republican. Well, I can tell you that it is moderate Republicans in Congress who have created our biggest problem in Washington – the huge gulf between what Republicans say and what we do. I have heard over, and over, and over that the reason why spending is up, not down, at the federal level is that while we have a majority of Republicans in both the Senate and House of Representatives, because of moderate Republicans, we don’t have a majority of votes to reduce the size and scope of the national government.

One of Roach's key selling points was that by contesting Bilbray in the primary, he would draw conservative Republicans to the polls and those voters would help Bilbray out in the same day run-off election for the last six months of Cunningham unexpired term. Without Roach in the race, he and his conservative supporters can lay the loss of the CA-50 directly onto the Republican species they most dispise, "moderates."