Colorado: John Mccain

Who's leading the Republican Party? In Colorado, we know who isn't leading things, but around the country, nobody seems to know, either.

According to Rasmussen Reports:

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Republican voters say their party has no clear leader, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Another 17% are undecided.

Just five percent (5%) view either John McCain, the GOP's unsuccessful 2008 presidential candidate, or new party chairman Michael Steele as the party's leader.

Two percent (2%) see conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh in that role, and one percent (1%) name McCain's running mate, Alaska Govenror Sarah Palin. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner are each seen as GOP leader by less than one-half of one percent.

Democrats have no question who's in charge. Two-thirds of the party's voters (66%) see President Barack Obama as their leader. Nobody else reaches even the five percent (5%) level.

If you ask Ron Wolfe, the Republican mayor of Avon, Tom Stone has played a major role in marginalizing his party in Eagle County, where there was a Democratic sweep in November and the GOP trails in voter registration for the first time in recent memory.

And as Republicans continue to take stock of their defeats nationally and locally, there’s debate over whether Stone, a Realtor and former county commissioner, would be a better GOP party chairman than Dick Wadhams.

“If anything, [Tom Stone is] the Rush Limbaugh of Eagle County,” Wolfe told the Colorado Independent Tuesday. “I don’t think Tom had a history here of working well with anyone who was anything but super-, super-conservative.

The New York Times breaks it down, Obama Gains G.O.P Support from Governors
President Obama must wish governors could vote in Congress: While just three of the 219 Republican lawmakers backed the $787 billion economic recovery plan that he is signing into law on Tuesday, that trifling total would have been several times greater if support among the 22 Republican state executives counted.

The contrast reflects the two faces of the Republican Party these days.

Leaderless after losing the White House, the party is mostly defined by its Congressional wing, which flaunted its anti-spending ideology in opposing the stimulus package. That militancy drew the mockery of late-night television comics, but the praise of conservative talk-show stars and the party faithful.

(Photo/AleBonvini, Flickr)

The National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) is finally putting its money where its mouth has been. A round of radio ads targeting 30 Democrats in conservative or swing districts began airing Friday — among the targets were freshman Rep. Betsy Markey and third-term Rep. John Salazar of Colorado — who plan to vote in favor of the $790 billion economic stimulus package.

(Photo/AleBonvini, Flickr)

The 60-second radio ads blast Markey and Salazar “for supporting a trillion-dollar spending bill chock full of wasteful Washington spending instead of working across the aisle to create real jobs for struggling middle-class families,” according to an NRCC release.