But now his show, “La Voz del Pueblo,” has grown to be the biggest and most-trusted Spanish-language talk show in a state where Hispanics could easily decide the presidential election.

And so, on Tuesday morning, a woman’s voice on KBNO said, “Hi, give me one moment, the President will be on the line.”

“No problem. No problem,” replied Sergio.

A minute later, Obama said, “Hello, Fernando?”

So began an interview that was scheduled for 10 minutes but ran about 20. (Read about it here.)

“To the best of my knowledge it’s the first time a sitting president called into Spanish-language radio here in Colorado,” Sergio told me. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t appreciate that. It was a very positive experience for me and [my listeners] to have the most important man in the world calling.”

So how’d Sergio land Obama?

“We approached the Obama campaign,” Sergio told me. “They did their research and expressed interest. And then we approached Secretary Salazar, and the Secretary said, ‘I will ensure that they know your show is an important show and that the President should speak to you.’ We heard back in a couple days.”

“Four years ago, I was able to speak with John McCain twice, but we were unable to speak with Obama,” Sergio told me. “Instead, we got Joe Biden.”

Republicans are reaching out to Sergio this year as well.

“I had a conversation with [Colorado Republican Party Chairman] Ryan Call,” Sergio said. “He told me, ‘You can be sure that I will have Governor Romney on your show at least twice this year.’”

Has a date been set for Romney?

“Not yet,” Sergio replied. “It’s just a promise. It’s up to him. The doors are wide open. We will be as respectful with Governor Romney as we were with the President.

“At some point during this process I will make the case for one of the other,” Sergio said. “Twenty or 30 days before the election. Here is who I’m going to vote for, and here are the 10 reasons. But let people become well informed first.

“I stress how important it is to vote. Every single day, I say, ‘You go out there and you vote. Don’t let anyone else decide this for you.’ This will be a permanent theme until November.”

It’s an approach that’s in keeping with how Sergio runs his radio show, which he sees as a “platform is to try to help people.”

The show, which airs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 1280 AM, mostly addresses consumer issues, like problems with the banking industry and issues with police and immigration. Immigration attorneys make regular appearances on the program.

“The platform has worked out for us,” says Sergio, who’s been doing radio for 18 years. “It’s kind of like Martino’s show, but we’re more into helping people than promoting businesses.”

Sergio has an active presence on Facebook, but his show isn’t streamed online, because of steep fees that are required due to the fact that KBNO mostly airs music, Sergio told me. He hopes a solution can be found and online streaming will be added at some point.

Asked about the issues he thinks are most important to Hispanics, Sergio said he wavers between the economy and immigration.

“From my perspective, of course, it’s the economy, but immigration, for me, it’s a matter of respect. It’s emotional. I feel it. There is no other issue that has the same emotional impact. I was born in United States. But I witness the difficulties they face. I listen to the phone calls and the abuse.”

“I am an independent,” said Sergio, who supported Michael Bennet in 2010 and is leaning toward Obama. “I try in my own wisdom to do what’s right for my listeners.”

Jason Salzman runs the BigMedia blog and writes frequently at Huffington Post and Colorado Pols.

(Image of Obama: Hooper)

House Republicans passed a pair of provisions Friday that would stymie the military’s efforts to incorporate more renewable fuels into its supplies. The defense authorization bill now heads for a markup in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Democrats are preparing to go to battle.

“Continued reliance on foreign oil puts U.S. troops at unnecessary risk on and off the battlefield,” reads a letter written last week from Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, to Navy Admiral Jonathan Greenert soliciting his opinion on the House’s actions.

“In addition, the fiscal costs related to DOD’s dependence on fossil fuels are staggering. The annual Pentagon fuel bill increases by $130 million for every dollar increase in the cost per barrel of oil,” the letter continued. “This year alone, the Department of Defense will face an additional $1.3 billion bill as a result of the recent rise in fuel prices. Given that our military consumes approximately 300,000 barrels of oil per day, research into alternative fuels is a strategic and economic necessity.”

In response, Admiral Greenert wrote back (pdf) this week, saying attempts to obstruct the military’s transition to alternative fuels “will impede America’s energy security.” He referenced a May 16 statement from his superiors that lamented the House provisions would affect the Department of Defense’s “ability to procure alternative fuels and would further increase American reliance on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to geopolitical instability and endangering” U.S. interests abroad.

Soldiers set up a solar panel. (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense)

The military is emerging as a leader in the country’s clean energy movement, setting a goal of producing three gigawatts of renewable energy by 2025, or enough energy to power 750,000 homes. Each branch of the military is expected to kick in a gigawatt of energy, with the Navy taking the lead.

Not only are fossil fuels expensive, but transporting liquid fuel is an additional burden on the troops. And too often a deadly one. Many of America’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed guarding fuel convoys and defending fuel resupply lines. According to Sierra Magazine: One out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to the death of a soldier in 2007. In 2007 alone, that adds up to hundreds dead given the 6,000 recorded fuel convoys. Between 2003 and 2010 more than 3,000 troops have been killed or wounded while moving fuel.

Burning oil and gas also creates more work for the armed forces.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently noted that “rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

The defense authorization bill passed the House by a vote of 299 to 120. Colorado Republicans Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn and Cory Gardner all voted for it as did Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Colorado Democrats Diana DeGette and Jared Polis voted against the defense bill.

Rep. Coffman

“By forcing our military to adopt high-cost renewable energies, while at the same time pushing for reductions in military personnel, the president will ultimately force further reductions to achieve his costly Green Energy initiative while also meeting his demands for a smaller military,” Coffman said earlier this year.

The stage is now set for a showdown over the military’s energy spending between Sens. Udall, Shaheen and Begich and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., who have decried the military’s shift away from fossil fuels. The arguments just may come down to dollars and cents.

“There is a clear need to find cost-competitive alternative fuels, given the fiscal challenges the Navy is facing in FY12 alone due to increases in the price of fuel,” Admiral Greenert wrote to the senators.

The meeting came on the Wednesday of midterm week just days before spring break, so officials said they were encouraged but not surprised by the fact that roughly 150 students turned out. They told the Colorado Independent that young people seemed at least as energized in their support for Obama this year as they were in 2008, when members of the 18-to-29-year-old demographic voted for Obama over Republican rival John McCain by a record-setting two-thirds majority.

“Young voters. They’re the X-factor,” said a Colorado campaign official, shaking his head, raising his eyebrows and leaving his mouth open in a way that meant obviously!

A national staffer told the Independent that the reelection campaign, free from the need to wage a Democratic Party primary fight this year, is seizing on the advantage of time to ramp up outreach to young people and to enlist them early and in greater numbers to take on the kind of vital voter-contact and registration efforts young Obama supporters excelled at in 2008.

Indeed, the Obama event in Boulder was already the ninth of the “Greater Together Student Summits” the campaign has hosted at swing-state campuses since February, part of a campaign initiative launched last October. The summits lean heavily on promotion through online networks and usually feature celebrities in addition to senior campaign staffers and local Obama campaign volunteers.

Although pitched as an interactive discussion of key policy issues, the meeting in Boulder had the feel of a traditional campaign rally mashed up with a corporate motivational seminar.

Staffers, dressed in neat casual attire, sat on high stools and passed a microphone back and forth before an enormous screen bearing Power Point-style slides, tweeted questions from the audience and, to wrap the event, the 17-minute campaign video called “The Road We’ve Traveled” made by Davis Guggenheim, the producer and director behind blockbuster documentaries such as “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Waiting for Superman” and “It Might Get Loud.”

The narrative arc of the film appears to have set the pattern for the campaign’s summit presentations.

It begins by listing the crises that met the Obama administration on inauguration day in 2009 and then underlines the series of decisions made by the president to address them. A somber soundtrack thrums as references to disasters from 2009 roll across the screen: the mortgage debacle, the frozen financial markets, the failing Wall Street firms, the skyrocketing national debt, the impending auto-industry collapse and the avalanche of job loss.

Obama Adviser David Axelrod stares into the camera with weary eyes and drooping mustache and describes his state of mind during a post-election briefing on the economy.

“All I was thinking at that moment was Can we get a recount?”

Students at the summit responded to the film’s opening catalog of horrors with a mix of groans and ironic or exasperated laughs.

Obama for America Policy Director James Kvaal argued that young people should not view the 2012 election as a mere retread of 2008. It’s no less pressing, he said, even if it may seem less historic. He highlighted initiatives taken by the administration over the last four years of particular interest to young people: health care reform, middle class tax breaks and expansions in gay rights, tuition assistance and the renewable energy sector.

“This reelection is different from other reelections,” he said. “We’ve done a lot… but the important thing to remember is that we’re not done. If you compare it to the Bush reelection campaign of 2004, for example, at that point, President Bush had essentially carried out what he had set out to do. We were already engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and he had cut taxes for the wealthy twice. He didn’t do that much in his second term.

“All of the Republican candidates for president have vowed to roll back the progress we’ve made. There truly is a tremendous amount at stake… There is much left to do.”

Several speakers touched on a theme sure to be repeated often before November when they argued that all of the Republican candidates for president were vowing to repeal or defund laws and programs they disliked but that they offered no alternative plans to take the place of those laws and programs.

“Mitt Romney wants to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act,” said OFA National Operation Vote Director Buffy Wicks. “There are 2.5 million Americans in their twenties who now have access to health insurance through their parents’ plans. That includes 44,000 young Coloradans. Romney is running to take away health insurance from 44,000 Coloradans. What is he offering in exchange?”

“Think of the time and energy Republicans have dedicated to getting rid of Planned Parenthood,” she said later in response to a question on where the candidates stand on women’s issues. “This is something that provides the sharpest contrast– the low-cost preventive care, STD screening, well-women visits [provided by Planned Parenthood]… Again, what are the Republicans offering in exchange?”

Summit attendees interviewed by the Colorado Independent after the event rated it mostly successful.

“It could have been more interactive, less of a lecture format and more focused on action. Practical stuff. What do we do now? What are the next steps?” said Rhiannon Riccillo, a CU senior from Pueblo, who volunteered for the Obama campaign in 2008.

“The message was motivating, though… I guess it’s time to get started again. Since 2010, you can really see the Republican agenda. I mean, close Planned Parenthood? End contraception?”

As the Colorado Independent has recently reported, youth-vote analysts have been parsing statistics from the last two presidential elections and watching turnout so far for this year’s Republican primary, and they are concluding that the GOP seems effectively to be writing off the youth vote.

“Are the [Republican] candidates making an effort to get young people to participate? Are they speaking to youth? I see very little of it,” Abby Kiesa, youth coordinator and researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, told the Colorado Independent.

The Obama campaign is clearly keyed in to the ground game mechanics that researchers at the Pew Foundation and scholars like University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket have explored in depth since 2008. Young people didn’t just vote for Obama, according to the researchers, they were also unusually active in his campaign. Nearly 30 percent of young Obama voters said they attended at least one campaign event that year. Those mobilized supporters mobilized more supporters.

In Colorado and the other battleground states, Pew found that young people were contacted in much greater numbers by the Obama campaign than were contacted by the McCain campaign. Battleground youth voters were also more likely to be contacted than were older battleground voters, which Pew reported was a “significant reversal from past patterns.”

In a few key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida and Indiana, the percentage of young voters contacted by the Obama campaign reached up to 50 percent and 60 percent, doubling and tripling McCain campaign efforts and notching some of Obama’s biggest and/or most significant point spreads on Election Night.

The Obama campaign’s “Greater Together” effort is being launched with the guidance of top staffers and it has been underway for months. It has also carved out a major presence at the reelection website.

The campaign for GOP frontrunner Romney by contrast seems to have no staffers dedicated to the youth vote. There is no youth-voter section listed at the campaign website. And the campaign message for young people, according to Kiesa, is centered almost entirely on paying down the national debt.

Messages left with the Romney campaign were not immediately returned.

[ Image: Screen shot from "The Road We've Traveled" ]

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Last week, the Johnstown-based group (which operates over a large swath of the northern Front Range but lists Johnstown south-east of Ft. Collins as its postal address) sent out an email blast littered with exclamation points announcing Paul’s brief visit to Denver. It also pointed caucus goers to the group’s “no rhetoric, all facts” GOP Presidential Voter Guide, a deadpan exercise in candidate demolition that leaves no doubt where the group stands.

The authors of the guide skewered Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum as unreliably conservative in both fiscal matters and in checking government overreach.

The guide’s list of facts on Romney, for example, opens on “Romneycare” and underlines that the Massachusetts healthcare plan steered into law by Romney was the blueprint for tea party-detested “Obamacare.” The list then moves onto Romney’s support for the big government-style anti-free-market TARP bailouts, gun right restrictions and climate change “cap and trade” proposals. The list wraps by calling Romney a “flip flopper” on amnesty for undocumented residents.

By contrast, not a single unqualified negative comment falls into the Ron Paul list. Paul’s record on government spending is described as “stellar.” Even Paul positions typically controversial on the right, such as his anti-interventionist foreign policy and commitment to ending “War on Terror” policies and programs, are described in an unabashed positive light.

The Northern Colorado Tea Party facts on Romney:

• Passed “Romneycare” into Massachusetts law, which eventually became the blueprint for Obamacare
• Supported TARP
• Opposed Obama’s stimulus plan and urged Republicans to vote against it
• Supported Cap & Trade legislation in Massachusetts
• Has also supported his fair share of anti-gun legislation and has refused to return the National Association of Gun Rights survey
• Has a horrible record on taxes, er, should I say fees…although he opposed tax hikes as governor, he imposed a mountain of “fees” to help balance the budget
• Has a mixed record on spending.  He did successfully cut government spending during the first part of his first term, but loosened the purse strings during the later years.  During his time as governor, he did save the state millions by cutting out waste within the system, eliminating meaningless government jobs, and going after local earmarks instead of dipping into the states rainy day fund.
• Supports ethanol subsidies
• Supports “Right to Work” legislation and states
• Mitt is a flip-flopper on amnesty and ultimately supports a plan similar to Newt’s, granting amnesty for “some”.

The Northern Colorado Tea Party facts on Paul:

• Voted against TARP
• Voted against Obamacare
• Voted against Obama’s stimulus
• Voted against auto bailouts and Cash for Clunkers
• Voted against Cap & Trade
• Supports Right to Work legislation
• Has never voted to raise the debt ceiling
• Is an outspoken advocate for the Tenth amendment and states rights
• Is an outspoken advocate for the Constitution and limited government
• Strongly supports auditing the Federal Reserve
• Has an excellent record on gun control, recently being crowned the “Defender of the Second Amendment” by Gun Owners of America.  He is the only candidate remaining to have returned the National Association of Gun Rights survey with a 100% score.
• He has an excellent record on taxes, never voting for a tax increase and always supporting tax cuts across the board.  He has voted to cut taxes by $80 billion in the past 5 years, voicing his opinion that cutting taxes is the only way to stimulate the economy
• He has an excellent record on spending voting against nearly every big spending bill and was 1 of  41 congressman to vote against No Child Left Behind.
• His stellar spending record aside though, he has become a strong supporter of earmarks giving him an undesirable 29% on the Club for Growth’s rePORK card (although earlier in his career he never used earmarks).  He believes that earmarks are held to much higher accountability and that if the federal government is taking funds from his state constituents, it is his responsibility to bring the funds back to them.  He typically votes no on the same bills he is inserting his earmarks in.
• Believes we need to end the billions of dollars we spend annually in foreign aid, especially to the countries we are at war with.
• Supports securing our borders and coastlines, supports enforcing visa rules by tracking and deporting anyone who overstays their visa, opposes amnesty, and supports ending birthright citizenship.
• Believes we should bring our troops home and readdress our approach regarding the War on Terror and military spending along with the waste, fraud and corruption that may go along with it.

It’s hard to say how much influence the Northern Colorado Tea Party leaders will exert on caucus activity today, but the group’s large presence in the state’s fourth congressional district and strong support for CD4 candidate Cory Gardner in 2010 likely played a large role in Gardner’s easy victory over Democratic incumbent Betsy Markey. The group also lead the state-wide tea party support that boosted Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck’s U.S. Senate bid that same year, propelling him to primary victory over establishment candidate Jane Norton.

Messages to the Northern Colorado Tea Party went unanswered this week, so its loose membership in the thousands or even perhaps tens of thousands couldn’t be confirmed. Estimates, however, put state-wide tea party membership in 2010 at something like 220,000. If those numbers have been even moderately sustained, tea partiers will have a significant impact at the GOP caucuses.

There are roughly 1.08 million registered Republicans in Colorado and only roughly 10 percent of those will turn up to caucus tonight. Politically engaged tea partiers will make up a disproportionate number of attendees.

Although tea party support for Paul will certainly thin Romney support, it bodes particularly ill for rival runner-up candidates Santorum and Gingrich.

Santorum at least is likely to do well among the state’s large Colorado Springs-based evangelical voting bloc.

“I ask you to reset this race,” Santorum told voters here this past weekend. “Create an opportunity for someone who can speak to Americans about what America is all about.”

Yesterday in Golden, just miles from the country’s National Center for Atmospheric Research, the former Pennsylvania senator let loose a stemwinder at an energy forum in which he attacked international climate scientists as partners in a conspiracy to willfully create panic that would open up the country to totalitarian-like government control of the economy. He laced his talk with tent-revival-style reference to god’s will and man’s dominion over the natural world.

Yet it may be Gingrich who seems to be hoping most for a miracle in Colorado. He still has minimal campaign presence in the state and has spent almost no time here. His three wives and outrageous Tiffany tab won’t help him win the Focus on the Family-Tim Tebow vote and his term as House Speaker and then as Beltway-influence peddler are sure to undercut his attraction to anti-government tea partiers.

Romney, however, despite tea party and evangelical resistance, may pull off a key victory in the Centennial State. He has gained momentum from a series of recent primary victories and will be boosted here as he was this weekend in Nevada by the Mormon vote. Mormons make up roughly 5 percent of all religious adherents in Colorado, or something like a community of 140,000 believers who generally vote Republican.

Romney enjoyed 60 percent support among Colorado Republicans in 2008, burying John McCain in that year’s caucuses.

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Calls to Coffman’s 2012 campaign staffers went unanswered today. Coffman is running for reelection against Democrat Joe Miklosi in a formerly safe Republican district remade this year as a tossup, equally divided among Republican, independent and Democratic voters.

At the beginning of November, before his district boundaries had been cemented, Coffman announced he was proud to chair Perry’s campaign in Colorado. It was another in a series of moves that seemed to mark a sharp turn to the right for Coffman.

“Governor Perry’s experience, ideas and proven record of job creation make him the candidate we need to get our nation working again,” Coffman said. “I am looking forward to being a part of Gov. Perry’s campaign team.”

Now, Perry’s prospects here and elsewhere look dim.

Romney is running far ahead of the pack in the next contest to be held January 10 in New Hampshire and has already pulled down the endorsement of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Despite his showing in Iowa, social conservative Santorum isn’t likely to catch fire in the Northeast.

Santorum spent nearly a year stumping in heavily evangelical Iowa and lost to Romney by a mere 8 votes out of some 150,000 cast. According to a Suffolk University/7News poll (PDF) released today, Santorum gained a full point’s worth of support in New Hampshire yesterday– but the bump only notched him 6 percent support over all. Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania who lost his seat to a Democrat in 2006, is running in fifth place in New Hampshire, according to Suffolk. Perry drew 1 percent support among the likely voters polled, trailing even Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who finished last in the Iowa caucuses and dropped out of the presidential race this morning.

The Colorado Republican presidential precinct caucuses are scheduled for February 7. In Colorado’s 2008 caucuses, Romney defeated John McCain in a landslide, winning 60 percent of the vote. This year’s race, the first presidential contest of the Tea Party era, however, seems different. Romney is being portrayed on the right as a new-model McCain, a flip-flopping moderate who can’t be trusted to push strong conservative policies, and so Romney seems unlikely to inspire the kind of enthusiasm he did four years ago here.

Pundits at the national Tea Party blog RedState have been strongly pushing Perry as the best alternative to Romney in the face of repeat signals that the campaign is doomed.

On Tuesday morning, tamping down expectations, RedState Founder Erick Erickson quoted Dan McLaughlin to say that a fourth-place finish by Perry would constitute a “life line” and would “ensure he will be the GOP nominee.”

Perry’s limping fifth-place finish, in which by some calculations his campaign and supporting committee spent nearly $500 in ads on each of the roughly 12,600 votes cast for him, wasn’t enough to dissuade Erickson. This morning, in a post-Iowa piece titled “Embrace the Suck,” he alternately blamed George W. Bush for the topsy-turvy GOP primary and pleaded with Perry to stay the course, painting him as the last great hope of the Tea Party.

If Rick Perry drops out of the race it will be the ultimate failure of the tea party movement to see the race come down to two or three big government conservatives. Romney and Santorum both hide behind compassionate conservatism to expand the state to suit their purposes. Only Rick Perry has run a campaign to make Washington “as inconsequential to our lives as possible.”

If I were Perry, I’d wake up tomorrow, say I refuse to surrender the Republican Party into the hands of big government conservatives after all the gains the tea party has made, and then announce I’m firing all my political staffers and communications staffers and ask South Carolina to help me reboot to victory. Make it an Alamo stand and, if like at the Alamo Perry goes down, perhaps there’ll at least be a rallying cry for small government conservatism left over.

Progressive groups pressured Coffman to defend a controversial anti-gay ad Perry ran in Iowa last month. Coffman made no comment. This week, in advance of the opening of the Colorado state legislative session, high-profile Republicans have come out in support of same-sex civil unions legislation defeated last year and on the slate to be reintroduced this year.

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U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

The U.S. Senate on Saturday overwhelmingly (89-10) passed a two-month extension that the House rejected 229-193 on Tuesday, with House Speaker John Boehner and the conservative Republican caucus insisting on a one-year extension. House and Senate Democrats are refusing to play ball.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo.

“Congress can’t even agree on a tax cut they all agree with,” said Joe Miklosi, a Democrat running for Coffman’s 6th Congressional District seat. “Senate Republicans and Democrats managed to negotiate a reasonable compromise and it’s unacceptable that House Republicans continue the relentless partisan bickering. The consequences of a failure to act will have major economic repercussions.”

The only silver lining for some Democrats and members of Colorado’s conservation community is that a provision compelling President Obama to fast track a decision on the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline is also caught up in the congressional stalemate. Coffman this morning was blasted by environmental groups for supporting the provision.

Colorado activists wearing Santa hats delivered coal and sang coal carols at Coffman’s Lone Tree office. They accused Coffman of pandering to energy interests, which they say have contributed more than $145,000 to his re-election campaign.

“The House brings shame on itself when its members take tens of millions in big oil money and then do the industry’s bidding,” 350.org founder Bill McKibben said in a release. “Keystone XL creates no net jobs and pours carbon into the atmosphere. That’s why millions across the country opposed it. Its only beneficiaries are the fossil fuel industry and the politicians they support.”

The Keystone XL provision was seen as sweetener in the deal to get House Republicans to vote for the payroll tax break, but apparently it wasn’t enough to overcome reservations about the length of the deal. But DeGette said that the Senate deal is the best that can be hoped for in the current political climate.

“While a two-month extension is far from ideal, given the intransigence that has marked this year in Congress, and the difficult negotiations that have already taken place on this bill, it is clear more time is needed to develop an effective year-long solution,” DeGette said.

“This short-term extension would allow time for more negotiation without forcing American families to endure a tax hike or the devastating consequences of losing their unemployment benefits.”

Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn also tried to blame the Senate: “I urge my Democrat colleagues in the Senate to return to Washington and work with the House on a bill to give a full year tax break to American families. The House stands ready to get the job done and work through the holidays, just as many other Americans are doing. We are committed to giving middle class families a tax cut for a full year as the President has requested.”

But even some Senate Republicans are calling out their counterparts in the House.

“It is harming the Republican Party. It is harming the view, if it’s possible anymore, of the American people about Congress,” Arizona Sen. John McCain told CNN. “And we’ve got to get this thing resolved and with the realization that the payroll tax cut must remain in effect.”

House Republican leaders want Senate Democrats to return to Washington and appoint conferees to negotiate a deal with the House.

“We believe there is common ground on this issue and we can provide some certainty in a full year’s worth of tax relief for the working taxpayers of this country,” House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said in a release. “Now it’s up to [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid, because the bill is back in the Senate.”

DeGette urged Reid to do the same thing:

“I had no choice but to vote against the politically motivated motion to go to conference,” she said in a statement. “However, given the dire consequences for the American people, I must now strongly urge … Reid to appoint conferees and work toward a common-sense solution for our nation before Jan. 1. I stand ready to vote at any time to help the millions of Americans who rely upon these critical funds.”

In the wake of the arrest of two Americans, U.S. Senator John McCain is under fire today for his refusal to apologize for speculating earlier that Arizona’s Willow fire had been caused by illegal immigrants.

McCain’s office has told the press he won’t apologize and say his earlier remarks were not specific to this fire but merely that perhaps illegal immigrants cause fires.

A release from the National Tequila Party sums the situation up thusly:

In June 2011, Arizona Senator John McCain inappropriately blamed the Arizona fire blazes on “illegal” immigrants, and he has failed to apologize even though there was no factual evidence the fires were started by immigrants. New information has come full circle where we learnt two “legal” Arizona citizens face federal charges of leaving an unattended campfire that sparked the massive Wallow Fire this summer.

We insist that Senator McCain apologize for blaming the fires on immigrants because the hate climate in Arizona is flagrant. If McCain apologizes, it would send a positive message to the nation that native born Americans commit crimes, too, and we cannot and must not continue to blame undocumented immigrants and use them as scapegoats in an unjust manner. Hate crimes have increased 125% in Phoenix alone over the past few years, and this data should encourage McCain to do the right thing.

If McCain still has trouble apologizing for his ill chosen statement, we hope he will swallow his pride chased by a shot of Tequila which could only help us reverse the hate-filled climate in Arizona.

It’s angry Tea Party town hall month in America and, in Arizona yesterday, Senator John McCain got a taste of the kind of crazy that colored Colorado’s gubernatorial race last year. The longtime public servant and one-time GOP presidential nominee was called out of touch by town hall Tea Partiers who were shocked McCain didn’t know about “Agenda 21,” an alleged United Nations plan that would see a world government take over the United States by wresting control of its farms.

“First our firearms, then our farms,” one of the Tea Partiers called out, amid the hullabaloo, according to the Arizona Republic.

Baffled, McCain said no Congress would allow anything of the sort to happen, but few cared to hear it.

Indeed, the Gilbert, Arizona, crowd was riled up well before McCain arrived, upset that he had appeared to mock the naivete of Tea Party members of Congress by quoting on the floor of the Senate a Wall Street Journal editorial that characterized them as deluded, as acting like they were hobbits in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, battling the forces of evil.

Asked by the town hall folks to apologize, McCain said he didn’t understand. He said he only meant that the drive to pass a balanced budget amendment was fantasy.

“Is there anything wrong that I said?” McCain asked. “I don’t know what to apologize for.”

In Colorado, 2010 Tea Party gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes became the GOP nominee and something of a national embarrassment to the state party, in part for warning voters against the Denver bike sharing program, which he said was part of a UN one-world government initiative that would deprive Americans of liberty and end in miserable domination.

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Endorsement of a candidate can often excite voters, especially Republicans and social conservatives as they try to find the candidate who best speaks to their values and can take over the White House next year.

However, in a year when the Republican party is trying to unite, endorsements can backfire the effort, some Republican State Central Committee members believe.

Four members of the Iowa Republican State Central Committee are backing U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), the media-dubbed “intellectual grandfather of the tea party” movement, which has picked up momentum since 2008 when high profile tea party leader former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ran as the vice presidential nominee with the more moderate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).

Dr. Drew Ivers serves as chairman of Paul’s Iowa campaign. Also endorsing Paul are Committee members Jeremiah Johnson, David Fischer and A.J. Spiker, who is vice-chairman of the campaign. Paul has also drawn state legislative endorsements from social conservatives Reps. Glen Massie (R-Des Moines) and Kim Pearson (R-Pleasant Hill).

“Congressman Paul’s voting record is true to the U.S. Constitution, and he understands that human life and individual liberty come to us from our Creator, not from government,” Spiker, who identified himself as a Constitutionalist, rather than a tea party activist or a social conservative, said. “His limited government principles are unmatched by any other candidate.”

Committee members are allowed to freely endorse or work for any candidate of their pleasing, but must fully disclose to the committee their campaign positions, if they hold any.

Former Iowa Rep. Jim Kurtenbach stepped down from his position with the state party to focus on former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty‘s campaign. Committee member Wes Enos has also said he will recuse himself from Committee voting pertaining to his candidate of choice.

Still, some are biding their time before giving their investment to a potential president.

Iowa GOP Treasurer Craig Williams has yet to back a candidate — and will not do so until the Iowa Caucuses early next year.

“For me personally, the best way to assure fairness in the process is to remain as neutral as possible in that process right up until caucus day,” Williams told The Iowa Independent. Once the caucus arrives, he intends to “become an opinionated Iowan with the full right to speak on behalf of my favorite candidate and try to persuade my neighbors and friends to support hat candidate as well, but not until then.”

And though he stayed mum on his preference for 2012 thus far, Williams gave his stamp of approval on the wide range of GOP candidates, “any one of whom I would gladly take over [President] Barack Obama.”

Chelle Adkins will also wait until the caucuses to announce an endorsement.

Other committee members are against the idea of endorsing entirely, including Republican State Central Committeeman Steve Scheffler. Scheffler is also the president of the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition (formerly known as the Iowa Christian Alliance) and on the Republican National Committee.

“You never say never (to endorsing a candidate), but I haven’t and I won’t (endorse anyone),” Scheffler said. “If there’s an endorsed candidate so contrary to the core values of our party’s platform, it does not motivate the base and is not a good idea.”

Fellow member John Ortega simply said, “I just think it’s wrong” to endorse any candidate. Once a candidate has been nominated to square off against Obama, Ortega said, “then I will happily give that person my full support.”