I had thought that maybe Rand Paul was a little more thoughtful than Ron Paul about foreign affairs; but, I listened to him one day, not so long ago, and realized the old truism that the fruit didn't fall far from the tree was accurate in this case.
I just received this from The Weekly Standard
Walker in a Walk!
About 3,700 of you voted over the last week in the second installment of our presidential straw poll, selecting your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices for the GOP nomination.
The big news is Scott Walker. Walker had won first place by a small margin in January’s poll, winning 18 percent of the ballots in a splintered field (which then included Mitt Romney, who hadn’t yet announced he wasn’t running). Walker has now surged to a dominating position in the new survey, capturing 47 percent of the first choices, and selected as a first, second, or third choice on no less than 78 percent of the ballots (compared to 44 percent last time). Furthermore, in the new poll no one else made into double digits as a first choice, or made it onto as many as a third of the ballots in any position. So (for now!), it’s Walker in a walk.
Here are the complete results. The first number is the percentage the candidate won of 1st place choices, the second is the percentage of the ballots the candidate made it onto as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice. (The comparable January #s are in parentheses.)
Walker: 47/78 (18/44)
Cruz: 9/29 (16/35)
Rubio: 8/31 (4/18)
Carson: 7/27 (10/26)
Paul: 7/14 (6/16)
Bush: 6/17 (8/18)
Jindal: 3/21 (3/20)
Perry: 2/16 (3/15)
Kasich: 2/13 (4/15)
Pence: 2/10 (2/9)
Huckabee: 2/7 (3/12)
Fiorina: 1/9 (1/2)
Bolton: 1/8 (3/10)
Christie: 1/4 (2/8)
All the other candidates had one percent or fewer of first place choices, and were mentioned on three percent or fewer of all ballots.
Apart from Walker’s rise, the only notable change from January seems to be some erosion of support for Cruz and an increase for Rubio—and a surprising number of second and third place votes for Fiorina (mentioned on 9 percent of all ballots, more than Huckabee or Christie).
Obviously, this was not a scientific survey but rather a poll of those who chose to participate. Equally obvious, the race is early and seems very fluid. But it’s well known that WEEKLY STANDARD readers are an unusually perceptive, predictive, and prescient bunch! So make of it what you will.