RSS 2.0 FeedRon Paul Beats Mitt Romney
by Doug MataconisWhile I don’t put much stock in straw polls, stories like this should put a quick end to the idea of Mitt Romney as a serious contender for the nomination:
SPARKS, Nev. – Ron Paul won the GOP presidential straw poll conducted by organizers at the Conservative Leadership Conference held at the Nugget Casino this weekend “by a large margin,” according to an organizer.
Paul won with 33 percent, Romney came in second with 16 percent and Duncan Hunter was just behind with 15 percent. “Undecided” was fourth with 11 percent, and Thompson and Giuliani were next and ahead of the rest of the pack — all in single digits. Raw numbers haven’t been provided, but there were approximately 430 registrants at the opening of the conference.
Although many of the Republican presidential teams had surrogates representing them at the conference, Mitt Romney and Duncan Hunter were the only candidates to speak at the conference, and the victor himself was not there.
Libertarian sentiment dominated the conference, and a number of attendees expressed disappointment with the Republican Party for not catering to many of their views. Several speakers explained that they were looking to move on, echoing much of the discontent that came out of the meeting of the Council for National Policy in Salt Lake City late last month.
Mitt, if you can’t win a straw poll that where you’re the only “first-tier” candidate who showed up and lose to a guy wasn’t even there, it’s time to give up the ghost.
He would have probably done better by not showing up at all. When I’ve seen him, he looks like a machine constructed by aliens. These aliens have only ever seen men from Sears catalogs and have only ever heard humans speak in political commercials. The result is a candidate that is handsome, but speaks like a political commercial. Having never seen humans communicate, the aliens don’t realise that humans need to breathe, blink, smile, frown, and use body language to communicate, either.
Comment by Joshua Holmes — October 15, 2007 @ 7:40 amHe’s the Republican version of John Kerry. He’ll say whatever is popular with the audience he’s speaking to, even if everyone knows he doesn’t believe it. It cost Kerry the election in 2004, it’ll cost Romney the primary. Must be something in the water in Massachusetts.
Comment by UCrawford — October 15, 2007 @ 8:19 amDoug,
Despite all your usual RP skepticism, you really have to make note that the CLC is very much internet based and highly libertarian. Ron Paul gels well with that crowd. It’s the folks that aren’t well wired that RP needs to convince. This straw poll doesn’t count for anything. But yeah, Mitt Romney is crap and so are the rest of the high flying Republican candidates.
Comment by TanGeng — October 15, 2007 @ 10:01 am***UPDATE***Correction: An earlier version of this post had incorrect straw poll results. Romney was NOT fourth, but second. The post below is now correct.
Comment by John Newmna — October 15, 2007 @ 10:04 amhttp://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/14/410525.aspx
This is the news release archive from CLC website. http://conservablogs.com/clc2007/?p=102#more-102
McCain had a real bad day.
Ron Paul 32.80%
Mitt Romney 16.13%
Duncan Hunter 14.52%
Undecided 11.29%
Fred Thompson 7.53%
Rudy Giuliani 6.45%
Alan Keyes 3.76%
Mike Huckabee 3.23%
Tom Tancredo 1.61%
John McCain 1.08%
Other 1.08%
Sam Brownback 0.54%
Comment by Norm Nelson — October 15, 2007 @ 10:53 amOnce real votes are cast all these straw polls will be forgotten. I agree that Mitt’s flip flops will hurt him, but he’s got as good of a chance at the nomination as Rudy or Fred.
Comment by Bob — October 15, 2007 @ 11:10 amI agree that Romney has as good a chance as Fred or Rudy, but I think it is BECAUSE of his flip-flops not in spite of them. If Romney were still a pro-abortion, pro-immigration, pro-gay marriage candidate, he would be going nowhere. He has positioned himself as a conservative alternative to Rudy Giuliani and, now that McCain’s campaign has nose-dived, he just has to wait for Thompson implode in order to get one-on-one with Giuliani. He will then emerge as the only option for conservative-minded voters.
If he can run as strong a campaign as John Kerry did against GWB then Republicans will at least have a fighting chance at the Congressional level. That’s about as much as they can hope for at this stage of the game.
A fly in the ointment could be Ron Paul. New Hampshirites hate the War in Iraq and they hate taxes. RP fits their mood pretty well and he has the money to put up a good fight there. Last poll I saw put him at only 6% but that’s twice what he does nationally and he’s barely started to campaign. Moreover, the national campaign seems to be putting more emphasis on New Hampshire than on Iowa. I don’t think that it’s out of the question that RP could win in New Hampshire and blow Romney’s campaign out of the water.
I would kind of hate to see that because it would help Giuliani and Giuliani’s the worst possible option. Romney, though not good, is a lot less bad than Rudy. But sometimes that’s the price you have to pay to get the message across.
I don’t see how RP can win the GOP nomination, but I think that he can have a real impact on the race. If RP can win in NH or even have a strong showing, the GOP split on the war will be out in the open. It will also probably force Democrats to be a little less cagey on the issue and a little more specific about what troops they will withdraw and when. And that’s without even getting into the issue of Iran.
Comment by Rob — October 15, 2007 @ 1:59 pm