Posted on 05/23/2015 12:12:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson won the presidential straw poll at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City on Saturday, beating out Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Carson won 25.4 percent of the vote, while Walker took 20.5 percent and Cruz received 16.4 percent.
Other GOP presidential hopefuls and potential candidates finished far behind the top trio. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie finished a distant fourth with 5.3 percent of the vote, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry took 5 percent, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won 4.9 percent.
Winning the straw poll could provide a boost to Carson’s long-shot candidacy.
“The fact of the matter is that I believe our founders set up a system that wasn’t supposed to cater to a political class,” Carson said at the conference. “It was supposed to cater to the people.”
“We’ve got to stop making everything into a political issue,” he added. “Our unity is through our strength.”
Carson is looking to solidify a position in televised debates, with Fox News and CNN announcing they will limit the stage to 10 top candidates in national polls.
Carson has finished in the top 10 of several recent polls, but he recently decried the debate rules for excluding candidates.
“I am very worried that out of broadcasting convenience our party is about to exclude voices from our debate programs that are critical to making our party bigger, better, and bolder,” he wrote in a letter released Friday. “The rules may be good for me personally, but they are not good for the process.”
While straw polls can provide a snapshot of the candidates' standing among grassroots activists, they are generally poor predictors of success on the campaign trail.
Ron Paul won the Leadership Conference straw poll in 2011, but finished fourth in the GOP presidential primary.
Eleven presidential contenders were scheduled to attend this year's conference, but Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) were unable to attend in person due to late votes in the Senate Friday.
The two senators recorded video addresses to the conference instead. Cruz won last year’s straw poll, narrowly defeating Carson.
The poll results were first reported by The National Journal.
We need someone who knows the Constitution inside and out, and can beat the bureaucrats at their own game. Cruz.
We won’t have one this time either. I can’t imagine Carson’s appeal. He literally puts me to sleep when he speaks. Nice, accomplished man, but not POTUS material.
Not only beat them. But not afraid to soundly beat them. Cruz is the only one that can/will.
And a straw poll like this means very little...which is why The Hill is trying to make it a big deal.
We’ve never had a vegetarian president either.
Carson said some good things. He also said some stupid things.
I figure there is more to being president than having said some good things.
Or a transgender. Or a midget. Or a Scientologist. Or a Leprechaun. Or a Wiccan. Or a Hello Kitty enthusiast.
We’re so racist—oh, I forgot, it’s racist to like a world class surgeon because he’s black.
Looks like a lot of GOP voters have a guilt complex.
Same type as the whites who voted for Obama.
Which means we haven’t had a 7th Day Adventist president either. I would vote vegan, though it is going to be a problem in Iowa.
Oh, wonder, joy, and gory, a boutique candidate who just diverts votes from real, electable conservatives with genuine, solid governmental experience who can actually win the election and make genuine hard rock changes that must be made.
Until 7 years ago we never had a ......
....”I can’t imagine Carson’s appeal. He literally puts me to sleep when he speaks. Nice, accomplished man, but not POTUS material.”
My take on this is that as far as this straw poll is concerned, the “Republicans are obstructionist and confrontational” meme has in large part been successful.
I agree w/you about Carson, though he’s a fine man and remarkably skilled, he will be winning nothing. This poll was taken among cowed, worn out pollees who just want to go along to get along. That’s not especially encouraging, but it’s also not very meaningful.
It is hard to take the unqualified Dr. Carson too seriously. And it is hard to take this straw poll too seriously when Ron Paul and Ben Carson win it.
A few weeks back, Chris Wallace asked Ben on the air “Do you really believe all of these things you’re saying?”. This is the sign of someone no taken seriously as a true candidate.
Ben Carson should wait to become the Surgeon General under a GOP president, or possibly under a more open minded Dem. president. This is too similar to the Herman Cain discoveries from 2011, when he exposed his abysmal knowledge of world events.
And I’m fairly confident in predicting we never will. Certainly not this time, sorry Doc. Wendell Wilkie is not walking through that door.
How about President Eisenhower, unless you classify military service as government experience in the truest sense...............
I don’t think Carson is qualified to be president, but that being said, a thing he has going for him is that he is a genuinely good man with a history of making good decisions.
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