Colorado: George W. Bush

Colorado freshman Sen. and Deputy Whip Mark Udall is a pivotal figure in the intended Obama revolution, according to a profile fronting today’s Congressional Quarterly. Udall’s tall-order task is to help Obama succeed where Ronald Reagan failed by getting the record-breaking number of majority party newcomers in the senate to support the president’s agenda without alienating the moderate voters who elected them.

The list of newcomers Udall is tasked with wrangling includes two fellow Democrats — the other senator from Colorado, Michael Bennet, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s replacement; and Udall’s first cousin, Tom, from New Mexico.

Although Mark Begich of Alaska is the only freshman Democrat from a state that voted for Republican John McCain in November, five of the new Democratic senators were elected in states carried by George W.

One hundred enthusiastic Atlas Shrugged fans braved chilly temperatures on the east steps of the Colorado capitol Friday as part of a nationwide “tea party” protest to rail against the federal stimulus package and the government, in general.

Beyond the typical conservative-Libertarian rhetoric was some practical advice on how to “shrug these parasites off our backs” like opening a black market in your own garage.

(Photo/Wendy Norris)

Jenny Hatch of Louisville kicked off the event with a reading from the fictional anti-government manifesto Atlas Shrugged by libertarian darling Ayn Rand.

(Photo/Wendy Norris)

Hatch implored the crowd of mainly middle-aged white folk to shrug off medical care, run a subsistence farm with a garden, cows and chickens, and create a black market barter-and-trade system with like-minded neighbors.

Moments before President Barack Obama's pen touched paper Tuesday, Republican state Sen. Shawn Mitchell's tongue spit fire.

"Today is unfortunately historic," Mitchell, from Broomfield, told a crowd of hundreds gathered on the west side of the state Capitol in protest against the federal stimulus package. "It marks one of the biggest, most expensive mistakes in the history of American domestic policy."

Mitchell was one of a lineup of conservative lawmakers and activists who stirred the crowd by blasting the stimulus bill as fiscally irresponsible and an unwanted government intrusion into taxpayers' pockets.

Jim Pfaff, the Colorado state director of Americans for Prosperity, said the stimulus is massive deficit spending.

Acting U.S. attorney for Colorado Dave Gaouette started his law-enforcement career patrolling the streets of Lakewood in a pair of flammable polyester pants.

The police officer's uniform in 1976 was designed to convey the professionalism of an agent and came with a coordinating blazer that Gaouette was required to wear every time he got out of his patrol car.

"The pants could catch fire with road flares," he joked. "Directing traffic in a sport coat was an unusual thing."

Lakewood's police uniforms have come a long way since then, and so has Gaouette.

The 54-year-old was appointed Colorado's acting U.S. attorney when Troy Eid resigned last month.