MD Straw Poll Results - Ron Paul Wins

MD GOP ^ | 09/05/2007 | MD GOP

[Hurricane Bruiser]

ANNAPOLIS— After eleven days of presidential straw poll ballots cast at the Maryland Republican Party’s State Fair booth, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) was announced last night as the winner.

The Maryland Republican Party’s first-ever presidential straw poll at the State Fair resulted in nearly 1,000 Marylanders casting a vote for their favorite Republican candidate for president.

[George W. Bush]

the money gets spent regardless. All Tom Coburn is doing is screwing his base.

Not exactly. The size of the budget for any agency is passed first. Then they vote on any requested earmarks. Then it all goes to the reconciliation committee. Anything left over after the approved earmarks are approved by the joint committee is divvied up by the relevant federal agency (bureaucrats officially under the executive branch).

A congressman or a senator can also make themselves heard by these agencies even if they don't submit and pass an earmark. I know that if Tom Coburn wanted something from an agency I was head of, I think I'd try to accommodate him. Not that I think he's done that, just that there are many ways for congresscritters to affect the spending priorities.

[billbears]

I just can’t figure out how liberal Republicans like Ghouliani lead in the polls among Republicans. What has happened to the party that used to be for small government???

Simple, they don't believe in it anymore. Considering the origins of the party itself, I'm beginning to doubt they ever believed in it. They've just pandered to the Classical Liberals from time to time over the past few decades.

No, the Republican party is now driven by one thing and one thing only. A police action that, like other unclassified 'wars', appears to have no end in sight. And the way they talk some of them don't want it to end either.

The Republicans have created a coalition of sheep that have been scared not only by foreign fronts but domestic issues as well. This coalition wants someone to make the 'bad men' go away, be it terrorists or someone domestically whose lifestyle they don't agree with. In effect they want 'liberty and freedom' for those that believe as they do and no one else. This doesn't mean I agree with any of their 'enemies', far from it. But I also realize government is not always the solution either.

Tough words but true. Of course now I'll be condemned for supporting terrorists, homosexuals, and any other deviants that can be named. Although I don't, it doesn't matter. Those that don't believe as the party faithful must be wrong....

[lormand]

"You read like just another pussy scared of his own shadow."

I certainly wish I had the opportunity to "convince" you otherwise.

For a Paulistinian to call anyone else a "pussy scared of his own shadow" is pure chutzpah.

[ejonesie22]

It’s a conspiracy I tells ya!

[t_skoz]

Well, I’m a Christian, and while I’m opposed to the drug war, it’s because the drug war does more harm than the already harmful drug use! Ron Paul supported the invasion of Afghanistan. Ron Paul supports Israel, by advocating no more money go to Palestinian terrorists!

“My Reagan”... sorry, you can’t paint me with that brush.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Weak analogy. Getting some rubble for people to have for sentimental value isn’t a betrayal of his alleged principles.

If he’s really so against spending taxpayer money on useless crap, he should stand on his principles and refuse to participate in the money-grab of earmarks. Maybe even convince other members of Congress to do the same, and also work on reducing the overall amount available for earmarks. Kind of hard to campaign for that while sticking his snout in the public trough.

Standing up for principles isn’t always easy and sometimes it means making sacrifices — like NOT grabbing at taxpayer money just because it’s there and others are doing it.

[eboyer]

If Ron Paul wants a clear, non-ambiguous image of being against earmarks, then he has to be against them from the outset. PERIOD! None of this flip-flop garbage. This is ridiculous. Dr. Paul knows that the appropriation is going to pass - and he knows that tax payers in his district are going to foot some of the bill. I completely support how he plays a no win situation.

[Turbopilot]

In my opinion it's not worth pinging the list to a thread where the ASNB* has already had its circle-jerk. I'm one of the (rare?) ones who actually reads threads in their entirety, and all the rehashed idiocy just hurts. I wonder if there's a way to send the list links directly to relevant news, maybe via private message, when the thread's been ruined before you get a chance to ping the list?

*-Anti Space Nazi Brigades. This is my term for the trolls - they make up something about Ron Paul (such as that he's a Space Nazi), or hear something someone else made up, and then make it their mission to repost it incessantly on any remotely related thread. No facts or evidence are needed, and the proper response to any actual facts disproving the assertion is to make it again, only with worse punctuation and more second-grade namecalling. See above for numerous examples.

[eboyer]

Easy to type.....

[tacticalogic]

Textbook. Wow!

Who'd a thunk it. Introductory course, at that.

[t_skoz]

Your projection of Antisemitism on Ron Paul supporters says more about you than it does the ones you’d like to paint as antisemitic. More slander.

[maica]

50 people live on the island now, but tourism is one of Alaska’s main revenue sources and it was supposed to grant much more access to people, coming and going from that airport.

My husband built an airstrip on a small island in the Caribbean, years ago. We lived on our sailboat while he built it. All the equipment had to come by barge from Barbados, and sheds were built for the living quarters of the workmen. The island only had about a dozen or two residents at the time. Now there are ads in the luxury section of the NY Times magazine for vacations on that island. The access by air really made the island a going concern.

[ejonesie22]

Um, I am speechless, however if I close just one eye and bash my head with a mallet, it seems perfectly sane...

[George W. Bush]

It actually, for the record, was going to be a bridge to some of rare llat land in that part of Alaska; land that has an airport, and would have made the airport accessible much more than today when only a fair weather ferry can reach the island. If a dem had wanted that earmark, it would have sailed through.

The real purpose of the Bridge To Nowhere is that that was an island with only a few dozen inhabitants but filled with a huge amount of harvestable timber, easily accessible because it wasn't mountainous. That single bridge would solve many problems in creating a quick profit for Alaskan timber interests. However, that's not in the taxpayer's interest as there is no indication the treasury would receive more from increased taxes on the timber operation than the government would spend on the Bridge.

A lot of people never have understood Bridge To Nowhere or the entire earmarks issue. I've concluded that for all the noise about earmarks and the Bridge To Nowhere (and the Iowa Rainforest) we had last year that few people at FR actually pay any attention to the facts. I suppose that would require they actually read the articles before spewing away in another drive-by posting.

[bcsco]

Dr. Paul is conservative on the issue that matters the most to me - self determination. I'm of the mindset that we have fought two wars on this particular issue and only won one of them.

Two wars on self-determination? One has to be the Revolutionary War. The other has to be the Civil War. Both determined the self-interests of this nation (one before, one during). And we won both! Some may say WWI and WWII were fought for self-determination, WWII especially. But that's a more liberal use of the term. I suppose the two Gulf Wars may be considered wars of self-determination. But if so, there goes the arguments of 'illegal', and 'unjustified', and 'needed a clear declaration of war first'. Surely, if they're fought for self-determination, they should be fought sans such anti-war rhetoric.

Or are you using the term 'war' in a more ambiguous, expressive way?

[casino66]

“Sep 5, 2007 10:42 am US/Eastern

Figures Show More People Visited Md. State Fair
(AP) TIMONIUM, Md. Final attendance figures show more than 417,000 people turned out for this year’s Maryland State Fair.”

“Congressman Ron Paul came in first place with 263 votes, Mayor Rudy Giuliani was second with 220 votes, and Senator Fred Thompson received 188 votes, which garnered the third place spot. The rest of the votes were cast as follows: 89 votes for Governor Mitt Romney, 54 votes for Senator John McCain, 35 votes for Governor Mike Huckabee, 17 votes for Speaker Newt Gingrich (write-in), 16 votes for Congressman Tom Tancredo, 12 votes for Senator Sam Brownback, 3 votes for Congressman Duncan Hunter, and 3 votes for Governor Bob Ehrlich (write-in). There were 11 other write-in votes for individual people. There were also a number of spoiled ballots that were not counted.”
http://www.mdgop.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=5992

According to my HP-12, he got .0001 of the potential vote. SURGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bcsco]

Man, it got thick as flies in here a lot quicker than I thought it would...

It ain't bad yet. The name calling and patronizing hasn't started yet. Just wait...

[OCCASparky]

No....but Paul is moving up, now ahead of Hunter, Brownback and Tancredo.

That's like being the smartest kid on the short bus.

[CJ Wolf]

You threw out the kosovo action. I pointed out that Ron Paul voted against it and Thompson voted for it. You suggest that the kosovo war wasn’t a threat. I would expect you would support someone who didn’t support that Klinton led NATO action rather then someone who did.

[maica]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge

More detail about the area