Monday, March 05, 2007

Mitt Romney Wins CPAC Straw Poll

Mitt Romney won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll. Romney received 21 percent of the vote. Rudolph Giuliani won 17 percent Sam Brockbeck was in third with 15 percent.

The big (and unsurprising) news is John McCain came in a disappointing fifth. McCain did not attend the event. Which is probably just as well. Besides no solid Republican support and independents fleeing because of the Iraq war; the McCain campaign is doing great.

Update: Taz makes a point about the straw poll.


Actually, Romney got the most first place votes in the CPAC07 straw poll, but the poll had a semi-Instant Runoff Voting quality to it where they asked particpants to vote by ranking their first and second choice for preisdent. When these votes were combined, Rudy came out the victor with 34%, followed by Romney and Newt Gingrich, both with 30%. I was on location at CPAC in DC when the results were annouced and I'm taking all of this from my notes, so I know it's accurate. Leave it to the MSM to screw up simple reporting jobs like this...

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4 Comments:

At March 05, 2007 6:56 PM , Blogger Vox Populi said...

I always thought mccain would be the throw away guy.

They haven't given up on JEBBY yet.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 
At March 05, 2007 11:32 PM , Blogger tas said...

Actually, Romney got the most first place votes in the CPAC07 straw poll, but the poll had a semi-Instant Runoff Voting quality to it where they asked particpants to vote by ranking their first and second choice for preisdent. When these votes were combined, Rudy came out the victor with 34%, followed by Romney and Newt Gingrich, both with 30%. I was on location at CPAC in DC when the results were annouced and I'm taking all of this from my notes, so I know it's accurate. Leave it to the MSM to screw up simple reporting jobs like this...

 
At March 05, 2007 11:41 PM , Blogger Michael Hussey said...

I make a note of that in the post. Thanks Taz.

 
At March 05, 2007 11:45 PM , Blogger tas said...

As for Jebby, there's a big thumbs down for him from the conservative base. Jeb's name wasn't even mentioned within earshot of me my time at CPAC, I tried to be everywhere at once looking for stories. Odd but true fact: conservatives are as sick of the Bush family as we are. Just for different reasons.

As for Romney's chances, I'm surprised that he fared as strongly as he did among convention goers. There was STRONG opposition to Romney on display throughout the convention -- and besides the blanket statements against all three major GOP candidates, Mitt was really the only candidate to have targeted resistance against him at CPAC. For every pro-Romney flyer you could find and anti-Romney one. Before this convention I thought Mitt was a shoe-in for the GOP nomination, but now I'm not so sure.

The actual conservatives running for president (Brownback, Huckabee) spoke but didn't win over the base, not even in the straw poll. The one conservative that could win over the base, I'm convinced, is Newt Gingrich. He was definitely the rock star of CPAC (beating out even Ann Coulter's star power). He placed second in CPAC's straw poll despite the fact that nobody knows whether or not he's running. After the straw poll results were annouced, David (I think that's his first name) Keane was on stage and said that Newt was coming right up. Everyone got out of their seats and started chanting "NEWT NEWT NEWT!" Then Keane pointed towards teh back of the room, everyone turned around as Newt entered not from the stage but from the doors in the back, working his way through the crowd. Everyone stood on their chairs and went nuts -- NEWT NEWT NEWT! I swear to god, if Newt grabbed the microphone and blurted out, "Yes, I am running for president!," CPAC would have had a collective orgasm.

Newt, not Jeb, is the sleeper candidate to watch on the right.

 

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