If you follow what the otherside is doing, did Palin not winning the CPAC straw poll surprise you?

[OmahaBlueDog]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2012/tk-wins-cpac-straw-poll.html?wprss=thefix

2010 CPAC Straw Poll Results
Ron Paul 31%
Mitt Romney 22%
Sarah Palin 7%
Tim Pawlenty 6%
Mike Pence 5%
Newt Gingrich 4%
Mike Huckabee 4%
Mitch Daniels 2%
John Thune 2%
Rick Santorum 2%
Haley Barbour 1%

Given: not too many people had Obama and McCain pegged as the respective nominees of their parties in 2005. However, with all of the publicity Palin has enjoyed, she would have seemed to be the logical winner.

[hlthe2b]

1. I wonder if she had shown up, if it would have been different...

That crowd is so looney, though, I don't know what to make of anything that occurs there.

[katandmoon]

14. If she had shown up so would her bots, and the results would be way different

[Yurovsky]

22. She might have won, but Paul owns a good chunk of the GOP...

the extreme libertarian wing (and the rabid anti-immigrant wing as well), but that doesn't account for more than a 3rd of the party.

The remainder tends to be un-educated religious extremists, which is Palin's bread & butter. Trouble is, 10 other candidates are vying for that same piece of the pie, so Ron Paul polls well in a large field.

Get it down to Paul vs. 1 of the bible-thumpers, and you get a very different result.

Regardless, Obama will mop the floor with whomever the GOP nominates in 2012. Nobody (well, no SANE person) wants to go back to the era of Chimpy and Evil Dick.

[DireStrike]

2. I'm surprised mittens is getting 22%.

But ron paul is troubling. He has some cross-party appeal.

[onehandle]

8. Don't be troubled. Mittens is going to be the candidate.

And will lose.

The GOP hierarchy wouldn't let Ron Paul anywhere near the ticket.

[laughingliberal]

9. I don't expect him to be the candidate, either

but we will just have to wait and see. I think there are several sleepers of whom we are barely aware at present and the (R) candidate will be one of them.

[OmahaBlueDog]

19. A few weeks ago, there were some articles basically saying Thune would be their secret weapon

...thing is, Thune didn't beat Daschle because he's a towering statesman. IIRC, Thune won because the GOP led congress and Chimpy made it crystal clear that Ellsworth AFB would end up closed if Daschle were re-elected.

[laughingliberal]

27. He's a possibility. But I really think they have some sleepers.

I could be wrong but I don't think it will be anyone people are obsessing about right now.

[OmahaBlueDog]

21. Mittens would represent a big leap forward in logic for them..so he won't be the pick

Former Governor of a liberal, East Coast state (and they could tie him in with Scott Brown); successful olympic organizer; and he can make a fair claim that he got health care reform done as governor (whether Romneycare is any good or not is another debate).

However, the rank-and-file fundies can't get past his membership in LDS, and you can't win that nomination without the fundies.

[customerserviceguy]

26. And the fundies will not let Mitt at the top of the ticket, either

They finished him off pretty handily in Iowa in 2008, by the time he got to NH (which, media-wise, was in his backyard), he was fully cooked.

Fundies do NOT want to hand another talking point to the Mormon missionaries currently looking for stray sheep from their flocks.

[Don Caballero]

3. Not at all.

The RW is getting more extreme, more anti-government and definitely more racist. No wonder they love that racist hatemonger Ron Paul so much.

[Oceansaway]

4. she beat that asshat Pawlenty

and i bet that one stings abit....hehehe

[eleny]

13. Yeah, he really sucked up providing damning sound bites

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Not really. The Ronpaulians are the Larouchies of the right and are fanatical.

Most of the others are one issue extremists who gravitate toward whichever talking head sides best with their particular pathology.

[onehandle]

6. No. These people know that she is a joke. nt

[activa8tr]

7. Despite all the media attention the pretty face gets, I think

most people have brains than the few tens of thousands who actually buy her book.

Yes, most people, even conservatives, who see her as a light weight, proved to be so by the VP campaign, by her book, by Colin Powell's pronouncement that she is not ready.

Heck even Cheney doesn't find her credible.

All she is is a photo opportunity for the media, and particularly for Fox News, but for all the rest, who waste time with her, instead of explaining the health care issues and the recession to the public.

[aquart]

10. Did it surprise them? Ron Paul????

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Many here conflate the "conservative" wing with the fencepost stupid wing.

They do share a common subset, but Palin's supporters are for the most part not part of the neocon CPAC establishment or its right-libertarian fringe. Her base is the fundamentally stupid wing of the party. The real question is how big that wing is and will they settle on one candidate. If they do, and that would likely be Palin, they will be a force in the primaries.

Note that Ron Paul was not a serious contender in 08 despite his 31% numbers at CPAC. This poll does not reflect how republicans will vote.

[OmahaBlueDog]

24. True, but Ron Paul supporters seem to represent the youth and energy in the party

As someone else in the thread pointed out, he's not just singing the typical GOP corporatist song.

I'd make the analogy to Howard Dean. Dean failed in his attempt to become President, but Dr. Dean and his supporters are really what drove the party forward through 2006 and ito the WH in 2008. (as an aside, I'd personally like to see Dean either return as DNC chair, or have him replace Rahm Emmanuel as WHCOS).

[laughingliberal]

12. No, I'm not a bit surprised and the undue attention this woman get on a Democratic website has been

whacky. I guess some see the booga booga factor to her as valuable for keeping Democrats in line but she's a red herring, at best. Mostly, she's a joke.

[Sebastian Doyle]

15. I caught a few minutes of Paul's speech on C-Span, and its clear he had a lot of his fans there

So I'm not that surprised that he won the CPAC straw poll. Doesn't neccesarily mean anything when it comes to actual primaries though. I'm sure the whore media will still try to shut him out like they did last time, and like they do with Kucinich on our side. Can't give favorable coverage to anyone who represents any significant change from the corporatist status quo, no matter which side of the aisle they're coming from.

[AlinPA]

16. I thought that she would get about 40-50% of the teabaggers and anti-government right-wingers. nt

[HopeHoops]

17. Asswipe Santorum must be steamed.

I'm glad we kicked him out of PA and sent him back to his REAL home in Virginia. He STILL owes' Penn Hills over $100,000 for the "cyber school" tuition he ripped them off for by pretending to live in a small shack that was located there. He never spent a night in that place. What a dickweed.

[OmahaBlueDog]

23. He's been showing up in Iowa at speaking engagements

I'm guessing he's looking at Veep?

[Kievan Rus]

18. Not at all. CPAC is the craziest of the crazies.

[Blue_In_AK]

20. No, but Ron Paul winning it did surprise me.

I'm encouraged that Sarah's star seems to be dimming even among the wingnuts.

[OHdem10]

25. Palin's followers are the RR not the TeaBaggers. When she gave

that keynote speech recently many in that room were her
base. There were Tea baggers outside.

She was courting Tea Baggers for GOP. Does not look as
if she made big head way. Libertarians and Fundies would
not necessarily seek the the same leader.

[Hannah Bell]

28. but huckabee's low score surprised me.

[OmahaBlueDog]

33. Me, too. He's another one that's been regularly "speaking" in Iowa

Clearly, he'd like to have another shot at it.

[DailyGrind51]

29. CPAC leans more libertarian than Republican these days.

[rucky]

30. Did Ron Paul winning surprise you?

I still can't explain that one. And by such a large margin.

[OmahaBlueDog]

34. It surprised me to the extent that most of these events have become Palin showcases (nt)

[PRETZEL]

35. I agree about Paul suprising everyone

it wasn't that long ago where people were running away as fast as they could just by the mere mention of his name.

[DainBramaged]

31. Rick Santorum 2%

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :patriot:

[mwb970]

32. The CPAC straw poll means absolutely nothing.

With 10,000 in attendance at CPAC, about 2400 straw-poll votes were cast. Paul won 31%, which translates to about 744 people who voted for him. Out of 10,000 attendees. When the winner was announced, the result was booed loudly, understandably considering that only about 7.5% of the attendees actually cast votes for Paul.

What kind of nonsensical "poll" is this, anyway?

BTW, Palin's 7% tally represents about 168 votes actually cast for her. Out of 10,000 attendees. And King Newt had less than that! Oo, scary.

[Orsino]

36. Everything else coming out of CPAC is a fucking lie.

Why would I waste time trying to prize meaning out of these numbers?