A little fireplug of a man, moonfaced and brush-haired, the 40-year-old Gardner is so relentlessly upbeat it can be exhausting to spend time with him. He talks fast, in abbreviated clauses that don't always gel into complete sentences. His affect falls somewhere between a human ray of sunshine and an overcaffeinated hamster. When I interviewed him, he parried my questions with short, rapid-fire answers, anticipating each volley like a tennis player crouching behind the net.

Gardner, who is currently in the House of Representatives, readily admits his party has "overreached" in the past. He promises to be a pragmatist who focuses on kitchen-table issues. Democrats dismiss this as election-year posturing, but Gardner insists he's been consistent: As a state legislator, he notes, he advocated a renewable-energy bill over thethe third time this year, saying he'd changed his mind after coming to understand the implications. But he remains a cosponsor of a federal personhood bill and has danced around aggressive questioning on the issue. (At one point, he even denied the federal personhood bill existed.) Frustratingly for Democrats, Gardner is a glib and talented politician, able to spit out non-answers with a cheery smile and without tripping up and saying something that could be used against him.

Democrats believe Gardner is just putting a happy face on the same old extremism. In 2012, they note, National Journal ranked Gardner the 10th most conservative member of the House. (In 2013, he was 98th.) Despite his talk about immigration reform in the abstract, they point out, he's voted to rescind