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.
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!