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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: JohnNorthofDenver
IN: Monday Open Thread
BY: JohnNorthofDenver
IN: Boebert Damns Her Would-Be Successor With Faint Praise
BY: Meiner49er
IN: Boebert Damns Her Would-Be Successor With Faint Praise
BY: ParkHill
IN: Monday Open Thread
BY: Genghis
IN: Threats From The Right, Relief From Clerks After Tina Peters Goes To Jail
BY: ParkHill
IN: Monday Open Thread
BY: spaceman2021
IN: I’m Gabe Evans, and This is the Worst Ad You’ve Seen in Years
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Threats From The Right, Relief From Clerks After Tina Peters Goes To Jail
BY: 2Jung2Die
IN: Threats From The Right, Relief From Clerks After Tina Peters Goes To Jail
BY: davebarnes
IN: Monday Open Thread
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
Now I understand! This leadership vacuum must be filled-and I’m the guy to fill it!
And why is that? First, because there must be a salary involved-Republicans are rich, after all! Secondly, because I read-and even write for!-the newspapers, and have discovered some amazing stuff!
First, everybody likes this Obama guy who-and I know this is hard for my fellow Gopsters to believe-was elected President in November. Also, nobody likes fat, stupid old guys like Limbaugh!
So here’s my leadership agenda: use good old-fashioned private sector entrepreneurialism to fund a crash program to clone Ward Churchill. Let’s have ten thousand Churchill’s wandering around being crazed leftists! Americans will then understand the error of their ways, vote Republican, and put the plutocrats back on K Street (and Easy Street as well).
My motto: Plutocracy for the Deserving! Unemployment for Everyone Else!
that’s been the GOP motto for a while now.
Plutocracy for the Deserving! Unemployment for some others under particular circumstances and based on outdated considerations.”
Much more accurate, though not as catchy.
and you’ve got something.
…since her conservative base is gonna be really PO’d when they find out that she appointed a former member of the Planned Parenthood board to the Alaska Supreme Court!
I’m tempted to say that on economic issues, CNBC reporter Rick Santelli is their current leader on economic issues and Rush Limbaugh is their leader on everything else.
There are several current/past office holders who seem to be angling for a shot at leading the party: Utah Governor John Huntsman has offered his opinion on what the party needs to do–it will likely fall on deaf ears, but its out there anyway; Newt Gingrich seems to picture himself as the elder statesman of the party who is trying to get a second shot as leader; Bobby Jindal effective shot any chance at being party leader in the immediate future with his horrible response to the (non)State of the Union Address.
Mitch McConnell or John Boehner should be the leader, but neither of them seem to want the role or know what to do with the role.
Rush is the guy they’re all looking to, which would insinuate he’s the leader.
Great point on the Congressional leadership being weak too. I remember when Newt was House Speaker, he was far and away the party leader. I think that Congressional Republicans are way too unpopular right now to be considered the leader.
Really it should be Michael Steele, but he’s already getting calls for his resignation. They’re really up shit creek right now–especially when you think about how popular Obama is even with the right wing attack machine going full throttle.
why do we care so much about who the republican’s “leader” is? Did we have a “leader” in March after Kerry lost? It took Dean a while to establish himself and even once he did was he really the “leader” of the party? I never really thought so. That’s not a knock on Dean, it’s just that when we were completely in the minority, no one from Dean to Pelosi to Reid was really the voice of the not-so-loyal opposition.
We likely would still be leaderless. Thankfully we had storng candidates who stood up and fought for control. I don’t see that same fervor happening now–even though the Dems were chomping at the bit to regain power in 2005.
It’s a good point though. As Democrats we should be happy they’re scurrying around like cockroaches fleeing a sinking ship, but I think our pondering is purely as political junkies.
Democrats generally don’t respond very well to “leaders” as we tend to question authority or the appearance of authority automatically.
Republicans, in general, like to be led.
Look historically at who the parties have nominated for President.
Democrats tend to nominate folks on their first run who many people have not even heard of before they ran. Going back to ’72(McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama) Gore is the only exception to the rule.
Republicans nominate candidates who have ran before and whoever’s turn it is (Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain)..with Bush II being the only exception to the rule.
Republicans like to know who is “next in line” and right now, there isn’t anyone—or doesn’t seem to be anyone.
Considering he won the CPAC straw poll, I’m a little surprised Mittens hasn’t tried to fill the void.
Except Mondale, like Gore, had been vice president, so it’s not right to say no one had heard of him before he won the nomination.
The pattern is good news for Republicans — they can stop worrying about Pawlenty or Huntsman and start concentrating on their weathered bench. The 2012 nominee will almost certainly be Romney, Huckabee, Guiliani, or — we can only hope! — Fred Thompson. Strictly, Sarah Palin wouldn’t qualify under Republican tradition, but she might slip in on a technicality.
ran in 1988 which is why I listed him as an “exception to the rule”.
which is one of the main reasons Democrats were so famously and spectacularly ineffective for the first half of this decade.
I was surprised Mittens wasn’t mentioned.
However, I saw him via CSPAN at CPAC weekend before last, and even though the crowd was pure red meat eating zealots, his base patronizing bomb throwing was met with, at the best, lukewarm enthusiasm.
There just seems to be something about him that prevents him from being embraced by Republicans.
I know his seeming inability to clearly define his “current” position on choice dogged him during the primaries.
But you would think that in light of the economic problems, Republicans would be turning to him because of his expertise.
One thing though, it’s early.
will be the repub’s early choice for 2012. Before he dropped out last year I think he had won half of the republican primaries including Colorado.
that Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee. I still can’t understand the collective psychosis that so gripped that party and made them reject the candidate that might have had a shot at winning.
Oh well, now I owe a bunch of people a bunch of money. (Which is why, Ray and Wade, I keep anonymous, sssshhhhhh).
But I don’t think the Rominator was ever quite winning in terms of primaries/caucuses. He won a few, and he got a bunch of delegates, but he didn’t have anything approaching even a plurality.
The first (bigotry against him because of his religion) was offensive and disgraceful.
The second (distrust of him because he’s flip flopped on too many issues) was easy to understand and a reasonable basis to reject him.
when he dropped out had actually won more states than John McCain at that point. Romney had won Colorado, Utah, Mass., Alaska, North Dakota and Navada maybe a few more? Huckabee won Iowa, Arkansas and a few others. The reason Romney dropped out is because McCain won the “winner take all” Republican delegate rich Florida. When you have winner take all delegate states, you have to win the heavily populated states. Even though Romney had won more states than McCain up to that point, McCain was winning because he barely won the big prize states. If I remember right, McCain won Florida by 4 pts ( was it 34% McCain to 30% Romney? ) Also, Romney new that conservatives would be split between he and Huckabee in the later primaries. If Huckabee would have dropped out early Romney would have won the republican side fairly easily.
I believe the following is pretty accurate.
By Feb 6th there had been 26 Republican primaries and caucuses. On Feb. 7th Romney dropped out.
Romney had won 11 states: Alaska, Navada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Mass. and Maine.
McCain had won 10 states: N.H., Arizona, California, Connecticut, Del., Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Florida and New York. (after Romney dropped out McCain went on to win 21 more states)
Huckabee had won 5 states: Iowa, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Tenn.(Huck went on to win 3 more states after Romney dropped out)
Despite only winning 10 states at this point, McCain had the delegate lead because he won the larger populated states with more delegates like Cali and Florida. Take Huckabee out of the equation and Romney wins Florida and McCain is the one dropping out probably in March.