Posted on 08/12/2007 6:36:48 AM PDT by SittinYonder
“His “nearly” 10 percent in a meaningless staw poll would be no big deal except we’re constantly told of his growing strength and legions of supporters. Where are they?”
They are over on KOS. His followers are a few conservative types but mostly anti-war liberals. This is no secret but seems to be rarely discussed. 1%, 10%, who cares? The majority of that percentage is anti-war, cut and run liberals.
I liked Huckabee at first, because I agree with what he says. But some Arkansas Freepers cautioned me to look into it: tax increases and hand-outs to illegals were as far as I got before I decided it wasn’t worth looking any further.
I was in Ames for the straw poll. Ron Paul was 2nd only to Romney in the number of volunteers he had touting him. Ron Paul volunteers seem to never sleep and we had trouble finding a hotel in Ames because some of the Ron Paul camp had literally booked the entire hotel. When I first got to the fairgrounds it looked like a Ron Paul peep rally because his signs and his people were EVERYWHERE (definitely more signs than even Romney). Paul definitely talked hundreds of out-of-state supporters to show up and make it look at though he had a groundswell of support (the same people who spam online polls all day to make it look as though Paul "wins" every debate). With all the non-stop hype we got from the Paulites all day long (he had at least 3-4 people stationed at EVERY tent) he managed to eek out only a few hundred more votes than Tommy Thompson. Ron came in 5th, Tommy came in 6th. I was supporting Tommy and it was clear to me that Paul's volunteers outnumbered Tommy's 10-to-1 that day.
If Tommy or Hunter had the kind of manpower Ron had at the strawpoll, they would have easily toppled him.
If you were referred to FRED Thompson, you're wrong on all counts.
1) He was NOT there in person (though TOMMY Thompson was, and beat Fred by a 5-to-1 ratio)
2) He WAS on the ballot there (having formed an "exploratory committee")
3) His volunteers WERE there (since Fred was unannounced and didn't have an official booth, they created a makeshift "FredHeads" booth on the Fairgrounds and handed out "I'm with Fred" stuff all day)
Neither McCain or Giuliani had any presence at the Ames straw poll. Given that Fred supposely has this massive groundswell of "grassroots" support to "draft" him and is polling #2 nationally -- AND that Mitt Romney was the ONLY "first tier" candidate at the fairgrounds, I expected Fred could place at least 4th or 5th at Ames without showing up in person and letting his Fredheads do the dirty work for him (as they managed to do quite handily online, such as all the "polls" Fred wins on FR). But he didn't come in 4th or 5th, he finshed a distance 7th place and got 5 times fewer votes than the 6th place guy.
Both Fred and Ron Paul's numbers were disappointing. Basically it shows Ron is a kook who has no chance of winning the GOP nomination (no matter how hard his people "work" these events), whereas Fred is a overhyped "dream" candidate that will have to get his butt in the race and start campainging hard if he expects to win the real primaries by Jan. He can't just get the GOP nomination by acclaimation by sitting home and giving nice soundbites on TV.
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