Posted on 10/20/2007 1:41:59 PM PDT by freespirited
Mitt Romney won the Family Research Council Values Voters' Summit straw poll in Washington Saturday, barely beating out Mike Huckabee with just 30 more votes.
Romney garnered 1595 votes to Huckabee's 1565 in the poll of conservative activists. Ron Paul was third with 865 and Fred Thompson was fourth with 564 votes. No vote count has been announced for Rudy Giuliani.
Romney spoke at the summit Friday and called for ending the "marriage penalty" and decreasing out-of-wedlock birth.
In a veiled hit at his rival, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and his more liberal positions on gay rights and abortion, Romney said, "We won’t win the White House with only two out of three or one out of three… We’re not going to beat Hillary Clinton by acting like Hillary Clinton."
Romney reiterated his belief that "two parents are the ideal setting for raising a child." On abortion, Romney declared he would be "a pro-life president," acknowledging that he was a "convert to this cause," referencing his 2005 change from an "effectively pro-choice" position to a pro-life stance.
More than 2,000 conservative activists attended the summit and heard from the Republican presidential field over the last two days.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said 5,776 votes were cast in the straw poll by voting in person, online or by mail. Romney's campaign actively petitioned supporters to vote online whether or not they had attended the conference.
The straw poll is non-binding, unscientific, and does not necessarily reflect the social conservative movement as a whole.
The following three questions were on the straw poll ballot:
1. Which of the following candidates for president would you be most likely to vote for?
RESULTS: Romney-1595 Huckabee-1565 Paul-865 Thompson-564
2. Who of the following candidates would be least acceptable to you as President of the United States? (results not yet announced)
3. Please indicate which issue is the most important in determining your opinion of the candidate that you will most likely vote for – choose one: RESULTS: -abortion -defending marriage -tax cuts -permanent tax relief
Did you think he was serious? I thought he was being sarcastic. After all, Fred’s been in over a month and a half, and Fred himself said that coming in late didn’t put him behind.
“Well, yes, we lost Iowa, New Hampshire, and Super Tuesday. But remember, we came in late, so we can’t be expected to win these early states. We expect to be up and running for the March primaries....”
See, sarcasm.
just a reminder that a lot of people on site voted online, NOT on-site. Huckabee won among those who VOTED on-site, but we don;t know if he won the vote of the attendees.
Romney told ALL his supporters to vote on-line. The rules didn’t say ANYTHING about releasing a separate count of “on-site” votes. If the FRC was going to do that, they should have included the online votes of attendees. But the FRC said they didn’t really care.
I’m sure if the candidates knew there would be a separate release of on-site totals, they would have told their supporters to vote at the site.
What I think the Huckabee numbers means is that he WON the vote of those who showed up on their own, who didn’t have a clear candidate already and therefore didn’t vote ahead of time.
Apparently people loved his speech (I missed it). If you listened to his speech, and didn’t know his record, you’d probably vote for him as well.
Romney/Huckabee vs Hillary/Vilsack
It's the energy level thing. When one goes up against the Hildebeast in the general election, he better be in PEAK physical and mental fitness. No more Bob Doles who acted like he was just floating thru the election.
Some people want to accuse Mitt Romney of “buying” this straw poll and point to the difference between online and onsite vote totals. They ignore the fact that EVERY other candidate also received a significant number of online votes. Huckabee, who came in second place, got nearly 70% of his votes from online voters. Ron Paul got over 97% online. Thompson received over 86% of his total online. The bottom line is that Romney has all the cash he could ever want. If he’d wanted to buy this straw poll, he’d would have bought far more than the 1,496 online votes he received online. In fact, having read the newspaper reports accusing Romney of “stacking” the votes because DeMoss sent out an email asking people to vote for Romney online, I was somewhat suspicious of the final online vote number for Romney. I would have expected it to be much higher, given the breathless tone of the articles I read about Romney’s campaign involvement.
I would bet that there are several posters, the mittwitt bots, that paid the dollar and voted. I also would bet that there was plenty of the Mormon faith that did the same. But we do know he paid for the people in the Iowa straw poll.
If any candidate counseled actual conference attendees to vote online instead of in-person, that would be a very serious mis-step. To me, it's kind of a given that a vote cast in-person is much more weighty than one cast online. For people to vote in-person, they had to pay $95 (I think it was), plus take the time and expense of traveling to the concert. It took $1 and an internet connection to instantly vote online. It's obvious which vote is going to be meaningful.The threshold may have been higher for an in-person vote than a vote placed either online or by mail, but, IMO, it doesn't carry more weight because of the higher threshold. There were 2,500 in attendance, therefore, there was potentially 1,500 who chose to vote either online or by mail; I don't think you could make much of a case that their votes were less meaningful than those who voted in person.
If given the choice I would vote online or by mail, mostly because I hate waiting in line, and for practical reasons, it's easier for me to vote online or by mail because of my handicaps.
Trust me, I'm not by any means a Huckabee booster -- but I think an objective person has to credit him with a huge win here.I absolutely agree. I would have been shocked if Mike Huckabee hadn't either won or finished second in that straw poll.
As did every other candidate there. Some of them couldn't get enough bodies to come to Ames to cast the votes they were willing to spend.
I'm guessing that a large number of so-called "values voters" really want the government to be our collective nanny, so they support the nanny candidate.
Many of us parents try hard to instill proper values in our children, including respect for laws. Yet Huckabee favors those breaking our laws. It sets a bad example and sends the wrong message. At best Huckabee is lacking in values.
I agree completely. Many people vote absentee rather than going to the polling location on voting day as well. I'm surprised more people didn't vote online to avoid the wainting in line hassle.
It never ceases to amaze me that when the Romney campaign thinks of somthing wise and savvy to encourage their supporters to turn out or be heard it is thought of as something negative instead of keen political strategy.
Did anything preclude the other candidates' supporters from voting online? No.
Anyway, it convinces me even more that the Romney campaign is the only one with the smarts and savvy to fight the Clinton machine.
Yes, other than ron pauls supporters, I would say it has something to do with moral values. Having Mormon church members vote as if they were members is at the least dishonest.
************
It's troubling.
I work with a good number of Mormons. They are not the type that vote en block for another “Mormon”. Maybe there are Mormons somewhere that do, but they aren’t any that I know.
His campaign apparently sent out an e-mail telling his supporters (and those who are on his mailing list) that the FRC had an on-line vote, and encouraging people to vote online, even if they were attending. To vote online you had to be a member (apparently even if you were attending), and to be a member you had to donate.
The e-mail apparently explained all of that, and gave the link.
I have no idea what you mean by “non value voters”. I know it was called the “value voters conference, but it was run by the Family Research Council, and was open to anybody who wanted to pay to attend. I have no idea how many valueless voters might have shown up at the conference, or be on Mitt’s e-mail list.
I’m guessing his campaign believes that all of his supporters have value.
Except for Giuliani, EVERY candidate received the majority of their votes from online voters. Every vote that was cast, online or in person, was cast by a member of the Family Research Council. Your insinuations are idiotic and obnoxious.
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