Posted on 09/27/2014 12:56:44 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz won the Value Voters Summit presidential straw poll on Saturday.
The crowd burst onto applause on Saturday, as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins announced that Cruz won 25 percent of votes at the annual Washington conference.
The victory is a big victory to the Republican firebrand and Tea Party icon, coming just a day after he drew standing ovations with a religious and emotional speech that blasted ObamaCare, congressional Democrats and called for Republicans to take over the White House in 2016.
Cruz also won the straw poll in 2013.
Coming in second was neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a political novice who has a large following in conservative circles but said earlier this week that there is a “strong” likelihood that he would run for president. He won 20 percent of the votes.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) came in third, with 12 percent of the vote.
As a signal of Carson’s popularity at the summit, the former Johns Hopkins University neurosurgeon came in first in the polling for vice president, winning 22 percent of the votes.
Cruz was the runner up in that contest, with 14 percent. Third was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) — who earned surprising admiration in his Friday evening address, despite his low showing in recent polls of potential 2016 contenders — with 11 percent of the vote.
The annual Washington summit is considered a right of passage for prospective Republican presidential candidates, and served as an opportunity for aspirants to make some of their most direct pitches to social conservatives before announcing their ambitions next year.
The notable absence from the winners' list of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — another senator who is considered to be strongly eyeing a presidential run — is a sign of pervasive skepticism from the religious right.
Paul’s libertarian leanings have won him supporters among the young and tech-savvy, but he has yet to make inroads among Christian conservatives. The poor showing comes despite his attempts on Friday to appeal to the summit’s religious leanings.
The summit also asks participants which issues they care about most deeply.
“Protecting religious liberty” easily won that contest with 39 percent of the vote, followed by abortion and “protecting natural marriage.”
No big surprise there. Rand Paul outed himself as a Liberaltarian some time ago. He's leaving an increasingly bad taste in the mouths of patriotic conservatives.
Go Ted go! Go Sarah go! Take America back! Crush islam! Destroy the seditious DemonRAT enemy!
I’ll support Cruz if he runs. He’s a smart articulate guy that doesn’t back down. I think the more the spotlight is on him the more he will shine. Two guys I will not support are Christie and Bush. I’d be open to a Ben Carson if he catches fire. I’d like to see a candidate like him permanently deconstruct the narrative of Republicans being anti-black. I want someone who isn’t a creature of the establishment.
Only Ted Cruz could unite SoCons and libertarians.
It takes both, along with plain 'ol suburban sorta-conservatives.
Those suburban conservatives aren't very sharp, knowledgeable, committed or conservative.
But they sure know how to climb aboard a bandwagon when "somebody needs to do something".
Our job is to form that bandwagon.
Rand is trying to trick his way into the White house. I do believe he is conservative. I just don’t see any benefit in sacrificing the opportunity to make the case for conservatism and liberty for the sake of indulging liberal false premises just to win which is what he is doing.
Cruz is solid. Probably the only one out there besides Palin that I have any genuine trust in. They both remind me of America as it used to be, and of Americans as they used to be. Firm and resolute in their beliefs. Unwilling to be cowed by the endless array of degenerate cultural pressures, from media attacks to PC orthodoxy to Party machinery.
We have NEVER elected a man to that office who has no government experience. Even Lincoln had one term in the House and Obama some state experience and a short stint in the senate.
Unite so-cons and libertarians?
You mean find a way that conservatives can convert libertarians to conservatism.
The GOP needs to nominate a conservative candidate, and the libertarians can just decide individually whether they prefer the democrat, the republican, or the libertarian candidate.
If Jeb preceeded GW he would have been the better man for the job and not I think hurt the Bush Brand.
But the brand is hurt. Nobody I know who voted for Bush wants to vote for Jeb.
Cruz OK, Carson is the PC choice, but if inexperience like Obama teaches something we should have learned, Carson should hold office first before wanting the nations leadership.
Eisenhower and Grant, as far as I know, never held a political office before POTUS.
What sort of conservative would spout the kinds of things that emanate from Rand Paul's mouth, if he were truly trying to appeal to the majority in this country, who are conservatives and right-leaning independents?
The man is now on record (many times) as opposing conservative ideology and policies, which makes no sense whatsoever if he ever intends to gain the support of the right in a national election.
No - Rand Paul has succumbed to the same muddled Liberaltarianism that turned his father into a laughingstock of the right AND left. He's staked out too many positions that are colored by liberal idealism, and has chosen to not stand on bedrock American conservatism, as he should.
The man's a Progressive Republican, if anything. No thanks.
Beat me to it, I was going to mention General Eisenhower never having been in elective office before becoming president.
However, when it comes to leadership and management experience, that is something to consider. Eisenhower had key experiences in that area, as he planned and executed the Normandy invasion, among other accomplishments as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Contrast with Obama never having had any executive experience of any kind in life before being elected president.
Jim DeMint
That's fine as long as we stop blaming Libertarians as "spoilers" when social conservative candidates lose races.
Well George Washington never had any elected government experience and he did fine. I think the problem with Washington DC right now is that people have substituted their “experience” for the constitution and for the law. I’m not saying that Carson is the man I’m just open to him but I think he could figure it out and surround himself with people to help him. That will be the test for him. If he can build a solid political campaign organization he’ll be fit for a run for the Presidency. Right now we have a capital full of the most experienced best educated failures on the planet. Its beyond time to be open to something different.
Someone who doesn’t think like a Washington insider because he isn’t. It certainly can’t get much worse and if we can’t do better we might as well speed up the trip to the end.
Like SoCons, libertarians have "must have" criteria.
And like SoCons, if they don't get their minimum needs met, they won't turn out. I believe it takes both factions to win, in spite of your take-it-or-leave-it pronouncement.
That doesn't build a coalition.
Strange defense of people who are too liberal for conservatism.
We don’t need to be pretending that the conservative/tea party base is small, like the libertarian people who are so confused and mixed up and anti-conservative.
Conservatives are the core, not a fringe element.
Yes, but to be fair to Obama, he has had more experience scooping ice cream than any other president.
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