(- promoted by Rocky Mountain Right: some impressions from the Steele dinner last night from an attendee, also see this Politics West article on the prospective candidates at the event.)

Michael Steele apparently won the hearts of the Colorado GOP last night, and he saw and heard that the Colorado GOP has a stronger bench than most people outside the state think.

Bob Beauprez and Dan Caplis made especially strong impressions in the Senate race. 

Josh Penry did ok but needs to work up a better presentation and needs practice.

Mark Hillman struck me as a strong prospect, but he's not running. 

J.J. Ament looks good for state treasurer, and Scott Gessler was impressive.

I was disappointed with Tom Tancredo. Scott McInnis didn't speak and Marc Holtzman was a no show as far as I could tell. 

UPDATE: This poll has been taken offline after upwards of 200 votes were logged from Indonesian IP addresses on behalf of Cleve Tidwell. Apparently my warning went unheeded since the perpetrators may or may not have been able to speak English and may not have understood it. They ended up doing exactly what I didn't want them to, and that was to spam the hell out of the poll and then plaster the results everywhere claiming it was a great show of "grassroots support." Spare me the emails claiming that all the votes came from supporters because I can tell which one came from Indonesian servers and proxy servers (the vast majority of them), so please don't insult anyone's intelligence further by pretending that this a victory.

As an aside, if you really are that hell-bent on spamming a poll on this site, please go to the poll host's website instead of this one. When a lone Indonesian server refreshes this site 500 times in the course of 15 minutes it just looks like a denial-of-service attack on my end.

A WARNING TO SUPPORTERS OF A CERTAIN FLEDGLING CANDIDATE: When you vote, your IP address is logged and I've worked enough in IT to recognize when someone is hammering away from proxy servers. I can tell definitively when someone is spamming a poll in favor of someone (as opposed to the blindingly obvious circumstansial evidence of a candidate who trailed in last place all week suddenly jumping to first in a manner of hours). As with one of my previous polls, I am more than happy to toss out your repeat votes and embarass your candidate by pointing out what you are doing so please think twice. When Ron Paul's supporters used tactics like this, it only annoyed the bloggers who were targetted and it is still just as annoying.

Vote for your favorite Republican gubernatorial candidate out of these five likely candidates. This poll will expire in one week (Feb. 19th at 12:00 PM).

Feel free to syndicate the poll to your own blog to help get an even clearer picture of conservative activists:

Marc Holtzman, Scott McInnis, and Dick Wadhams are chiming in on the debate over the GOP's future in the Denver Post. First up is Marc Holtzman, who thinks the GOP needs to focus on bringing in independent voters with a strong economic message:

"I really believe what Republicans need to do is to reach independent and like-minded Democrats in Colorado with an economic growth agenda," he said. "This is not a mutually exclusive agenda. All . . . segments of the party can embrace it."

Holtzman hits on what is clearly going to be the most effective strategy against Bill Ritter and the rest of the Democrats in 2010. The ousting of Bernie Buescher over his ties to Ritter's economic policies was a preview of a winning strategy that all wings of the party can unify behind. Next up is Scott McInnis, arguing for more centrist candidates:

Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis has openly argued for a similar tack, moderating the GOP's image and fielding more centrist candidates.

McInnis might be right about moderating on social issues at the state level. An ideal strategy would be to adapt the one pushed by Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos on the left. Moulitsas' strategy is to field the most liberal possibe candidate for a district. Conservatives should have similar aims, fielding a moderate in someplace like CD-1 while running social conservatives in districts such as CD-5. Finally, Dick Wadhams points to George Bush's unpopularity:

State GOP chairman Dick Wadhams attributes Republican defeats not to social stances but to the enthusiasm generated by President- elect Barack Obama, the unpopularity of President Bush and the economic crisis laid at Bush's feet.

On the stump and in the statehouse, Republicans "were not embarking on social-issue crusades," he said. "This is a party of fiscal and social conservatives; we have to have both to win."

Wadhams is certainly right about the damage from George Bush. Luckily this will not be much of a factor in 2010.

The debate over the GOP's future is unlikey to be resolved anytime soon, if at all. The best strategy will be a compromise between the various factions (remember that big tent?). Economic conservatives need to take Mark Hillman's advice and realize ejecting social conservatives from the party is not the path to victory. Social conservatives need to realize not everyone shares their zeal on social issues and take Marc Holtzman's advice; let the GOP run a campaign based on economic growth and liberty and win. An elected official sympathetic to your cause is better than a defeated purist.

It seems that talk of a primary against Ken Salazar is spreading beyond the blogosphere. The Denver Post reports that Ken Salazar is kicking off his fundraising early, in part because of anticipation of a potential costly primary:

A few factors could drive up campaign costs, he said.

Ritter, who's earned the ire of the deep -pocketed oil and gas industry this year, will have to boost fundraising efforts if Republicans quickly field a candidate with money and name recognition on par with his own, Saunders said.

And discontent with Salazar's moderate stances has some left-leaning Democrats hoping for a primary challenger.

Republicans will have a challenge in both races when it comes to fundraising. A former congressman with a Washington fundraising base (i.e. Scott McInnis) or someone with strong statewide name I.D. (i.e. Bill Owens or Mark Hillman) would be the most competitive in Senate race fundraising. As for the gubernatorial race, at least two potential candidates (Marc Holtzman and Don Marostica) would have the option of self-funding.

Whomever Republicans field as their candidates in these two races, conservative bloggers need to take the lead this election cycle in helping to raise money.

Rocky Mountain Right readers lean towards Marc Holtzman and Josh Penry as their top choices for Governor in 2010. In a hypothetical four-way match-up between Marc Holtzman, Josh Penry, Mark Hillman, and Tom Tancredo; both Holtzman and Penry topped 30% support out of over 100 votes cast. "None of the above" took 18% of the votes.

Ironically, the only one of these four to have made any solid moves towards running for Governor placed dead last. Tancredo came in with only 9%.

(Poll closed)