USA Today’s cover story today asks “Who speaks for the GOP?”
The story is about a national poll asking Americans who is the voice of the Republican party now that it is out of power.
The answer, according to the poll, essentially is nobody. Blowhard-in-Chief Rush Limbaugh got the highest percentage at 13 percent followed by Dick Cheney at 10 percent and Arizona native son John McCain at 6 percent.
That’s not a good sign for the party seeing as none of them will be running for president in 2012.
But the story got me thinking about the state Democratic party. It’s in the same boat the GOP is nationally: the Republicans control both houses of the Legislature by significant margins, the governor’s office and nearly every state elected office.
So who’s the leader of the state Dems?
The leader was Napolitano, though she wasn’t much of a Democrat. But she bailed for the Beltway.
So who is it? I’m leaning toward Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, mostly because she’s wicked smart and has been out front fighting the GOP legislative majority for two years, and partly because she’s a bit of a hottie (sorry, I’m a pig, what can I say?)
After her, who else is there? I’d nominate Tedski over at Rum, Romanism and Rebellion, but that’s probably because Prezelski blogs a lot and fills up my politics RSS feed most days. And he’s from Tucson, so maybe I’m a bit of homer with him.
But if the Dems in Arizona are to be led out of the wilderness, the trailblazer can’t be from Pima County, he or she has to come from the state of Maricopa.
So is it Attorney General Terry Goddard, the only Democrat holding statewide office now (the ACC doesn’t count)? To me, he’s the invisible man, but maybe he’s working the party behind the scenes in prep for a run for Guv next year. I wouldn’t know, I’m an Independent and don’t get the insiders’ newsletters.
After that, I’m stumped.
Any thoughts?