Posted on 04/11/2010 6:58:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) – Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would be the top pick of Republicans meeting here, to square off against US President Barack Obama, if the party primary were held now, officials said Saturday.
Romney edged out Texas Congressman Ron Paul by only one vote -- 439-438 -- to win a nine-candidate race of Republican candidates, according to results of Saturday's test vote at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
Paul and Romney campaigned unsuccessfully for their party's presidential nomination in 2008. It was won, however, by Arizona Senator John McCain, who eventually lost to Democrat Obama.
The preference-indicating exercise -- known as a "straw poll" -- capped three days of addresses at the Southern Republican conference that included sharp criticism of Obama's presidency by leading Republicans and conservative commentators.
A total of 1,806 votes were cast during two days of balloting that ended Saturday, according to Wilson Research Strategies, a national conservative polling firm that conducted the straw poll. Voting was limited to an estimated 3,500 conference delegates from 14 southern US states.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
GoPunk'd wasn't available.
Media picking our candidates for us again.
Isn’t this a tad premature?
Total BS, Total Nonsense.
They think. We can’t let it happen.
The only ones who preferred Romney were the 500 or so whom he gave free tickets and books to in exchange for their votes. In fact , he didn’t even get all of their votes. No better than the Democrats as far as buying votes is concerned.
US Republicans may, but I doubt if Conservative voters do ... Romneycare is as backrupt as anything Obama has come up with. In fact if you want to look at the future of Obamacare, just look at Massachusetts, where they are now in the process of taking the step to take over healthcare in Massachusetts.
The lame stream media has become so useless, in fact they have transitioned to outright dangerous.
Its a long way from the election.
Sorry - 2008 was the absolute LAST election in which I will be conned into holding my nose and voting for a completely unsatisfactory “R”...
I agree, they are trying to get the person most likely to cause a rift in the GOP to come out on top. I would never vote for Romney.
And so, the Narrative begins. . .
No Shi& If they and the rats do it again there is no chance for the survival of the REpublic
So we have to do something
Who or What is the AFP? Why should I give a twit what the think or say? I know for certain, that with this prediction I can safely write them off as completely worthless!
Yea I was thinking that’s how we got McCain.
I don’t have a clue who I’ll vote for because I don’t know who will be in the race. I do know that I won’t be voting for Romney.
More media BS. No way I am voting for Romney to be our nominee.
Bull Obama.
Although, the 10 remaining Republicans may prefer RINOmny.
The rest of we conservatives think Romney can take a hike - on the moon - without a space suit.
Republican in Louisiana?!
Yeah, someone is playing fast and loose with the press...
Agence France-Presse . Mitt speaks frog .
“Rounding out the field of candidates in the Republican straw poll were Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas; Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico; Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty; Mike Pence, a Republican congressman of Indiana; Romney and Rick Santorum, a former congressman and senator of Pennsylvania”
You said it....they set it up for Romney to win. Where is Sarah? Where is Michelle Bachman? Where is governor Jindal for pete’s sake?!
You and many millions more. This will never happen. Romney would have been a stronger candidate than McCain and he may have beaten Obama. This may have been better for the country in the long run, or perhaps not. It does not matter now. Conservatives are energized and a conservative republican will challenge the Marxist in 2012.
^RepublicanS, in Louisiana...sorry, I was eating an elk burger while typing...one really should choose to do one or the other...
Elk burger? Mmmmm! It’s good fer ya!
Yes it is! The best....
Still own a home in Montana.
Same here! I will NEVER vote for Romney!
ANSWER: Hiding, sending out manipulators,
selling his (ghostwritten) book,
helping Gore push the fraud of climate change,
(true to form) attacking the "tea party",
and buying votes in the straw polls.
Same here
It’s been clear for MANY MONTHS (it’s just been there,
‘in the air’) that Romney was the mutual choice of both the
Establishment GOP/Rino Old Guard, AND the MSM, who see him as the most-likely-to-be-doomed replacement for John McCain, who will not be available next time around. They will keep promoting this fiction, this habit of telling us what we believe and prefer, hopiong that this fiction takes on some kind of critical mass and becomes non-fiction.
It ain’t gonna happen this time. But it’ll be fun watching them cluelessly continue hammering home the Romney theme, until repeated polling shows even the RINOs that Romney is outpaced by just about all other candidates.
With his history with “Romneycare”, I can’t believe he even showed up.
Here we go again...they think!!!
“I will NEVER vote for Romney”
Sure you say that now, but if he gets the nod in open primaries—McCain was already 0’s wingman by the time we got to vote in IN—then the Grand Old Par-tay types will be urging everyone to support him, “`the perfect is the enemy of the good’/what are you, sum kinda troll/plant”and the recriminations, and as Profesor Frink might put it, the biting and metal teeth and hurting, well, it starts all over again, like the drowned blonde found in the shower with the empty gallon of Suave shampoo, instructions: `Rinse and Repeat.’
“Agence France-Presse . Mitt speaks frog .”
Thanks, all is explained now!
Well Romney got what he wanted for his $60K investment... the lamestream media calling him the 2012 POTUS candidate.
Not so much.
My words exactly! I've been saying them since Mark Kirk became the "republican" nominee for Obama's senate seat here in Illinois. I will never vote for the liberal bastard.
Okay, I admit it. I prefer Mitt Romney to having my toenails yanked off.
As opposed to what? A steaming pile of crap?
Sorry to hear you voted for McCain in the primary. I did vote against Obama in the general but I was never conned by McCain/Palin.
“AFP: US Republicans prefer Romney”
For what?
His face would look great on a billboard pitching used cars.
Or an infomercial selling juicers.
Had Palin of a similar candidate won the straw poll the crowd here would be crowing about the will of the people. The moaning and gnashing about the Romney campaign doing the same is foolish. It’s what campaigns do.
As for the tired cliche about the press picking the candidate, what was the option? Romney won, and the press reported it. If someone else wants to be president they better get to work. But that doesn’t appear to be happening.
Honestly friends, what’s the chance of a 2010 front runner becoming pres in 2012?
Weren’t we being lectured in 2006 that a Rudy-Hildebeest matchup was inevitable for 2008? Look how that turned out.
Having been one for a quarter-century, I’m sick to death of journalists telling us what we’re supposed to think. Just file your story, and shut up!
The J-school rot was pretty bad when I got into the biz in 1983, but there were still enough old-timers to ensure that reporting was merely biased.
Actually, you can’t help being biased one way or another. It’s just how you pick your biases. Me, I’m biased in favor of the U.S. Constitution and free-market capitalism.
But as Glenn Beck says, there’s a difference between being biased and being complicit. I’m not sure exactly when the media crossed that line, but we’re certainly there now.
I’ve got a little advice for all you Freepers. By all means vote your congresscritter out of office come November. But Tea Partiers should be directing a lot of their efforts toward making their displeasure known to their local MSM outlets.
Over my long newspaper career, I’ve learned that sometimes framing the questions is harder than getting the answers.
For years, I’ve been asking myself, it it the MSM propping up the RATS or vice versa? I now think the former.
Honestly, how many of these RAT traitors would have any political career if they weren’t being promoted all the way by the MSM?
Anyway, you’ve got my permission to make life miserable for your local “progressive” publisher and his editorial board hacks and Ivy League metrosexual reporters.
Still, I am cautiously optimistic about the future. We all know from the excellent Dinosaur Media Death Watch how much business the More Scum Media is losing.
Are the RATS taking any steps to bail out their their MSM toadies? Not really.
Considering how dependent he is are on the MSM propaganda machine, I would have thought that Emperor Bozo the Usurper would have made it a porkulus package priority.
Makes me wonder. Here’s some possibilities
1.) The RATS just haven’t gotten around to socializing their noise machine and are leaving that project for later.
2.) The RATS really are that dumb and forget how, despite everything they’re doing to destroy the free market, the market will not be denied forever. And that means a large chunk of the MSM won’t be economically sustainable in its current form.
3.) The MSM are not just presstitutes but cheap sluts who actually give it away. If a story ever broke about Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann taking RAT payoffs, I could at least give them the grudging respect due to cunning scoundrels. But as things stand today, they’re complete patsies.
No they don't, only Ron Paul/Romney types would pull these kind of degrading, dishonest stunts.
This is just like Romney's manipulation of the image of his weak book sales that the New York Times had to tag with two daggers.
I don't recall the media letting fake straw polls help advance a conservative in the news.
Romney “bought” almost every vote that he received at SRLC. He is by FAR the wealthiest potential candidate, and his minions were profligate with those funds. No, they did not just hand out greenbacks. But they did GENEROUSLY provide for transportation, attendance, and organization. And they gave away tons of campaign stuff, such as pins, T-shirts, books, and piggy banks. They plastered the place with pictures, cutouts, signage, banners, etc. and they packed the rooms with their own supporters as much as possible.
Ron Paul supporters could not match the spending, but they showed up in droves - particularly the young new voters, to whom the inconsistencies are not visible.
My wife and I, along with two friends, arrived Thursday afternoon. We saw a few of the political operatives but not the stars, who came out on Friday. Our friends, who had been active in Republican circles in AR, MS, and TN for decades, were fairly well known to a number of the people there from AR and MS, who arrived somewhat favoring Huckabee.
The next day we were a little late, but did manage to snag seats in the main hall instead of the overflow rooms. We missed Liz Cheney’s speech, and a little of J.C. Watts, but were there for all of Gingrich and Palin.
Sarah Palin’s speech wowed us all. One of our friends wrote “VOTE FOR SARAH” on his palm, and the rest of us followed suit as soon as he showed it to us. We “flashed” our one-handed message to anyone who would look until we left Saturday afternoon, and drew dozens of smiles, along with quite a few high-5’s!
One other truly impressive speaker on Saturday was Herman Cain, who preceded Michael Steele. Too bad, Michael!
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