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In the interest of being “fair & balanced”, let me present two different takes on the CPAC straw poll results, which I will offer without commentary.
First off, the Pro via My Man Mitt:
Mitt Romney’s speech at CPAC was what many would call astounding. Mitt is clearly making known that he is the NUMBER ONE candidate in this election. As it is becoming harder and harder, in this day and age, to be a Republican, I believe we need hope restored in the once believers. At one time Ronald Reagan did this for us, then it was Newt Gingrich, and now it is Mitt Romney. This is a man who not only restore the Republican Party, but he will find will innovate and bipartisan ways to make America better in ways we have never dreamed. People have recognized this which is way he WON the straw poll at the CPAC conference. Let us all band together for a better future and support the one man who can bring this to us, Mitt Romney.
And now the Con, per Liz Mair:
Assessment: it’s worrying when paying 200 people to vote for you only enables you to beat an unapologetically pro-choice, pro-gay candidate with no organization present on the ground at the country’s biggest conservative conference, dominated by social conservatives who should like your pro-life, pro-FMA line. It’s also very good news for Giuliani, who had no real presence at CPAC, apart from he himself speaking there and about six staffers milling about, and who obviously does not fit the ideology of your average CPACer, that he came second on the first choice poll– and only lost by 4% to a candidate who had obviously done his utmost to engineer winning the poll by busing hundreds of people in to vote for him from everywhere from Utah to Michigan. Oh– and a final note– after McCain’s CPAC hijinks, I’m surprised that he pulled off 12%. That’s surprisingly good, even if coming fifth is utterly useless.
Let us debate the merits of both opinions in the comments.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I had no idea that Romney was busing people in from Michigan and Utah. Knowing that, and seeing
him win the straw poll, its kind of embarassing that he wasn’t at least in the high 20s. Ouch.
Maybe he should have given the people a first class bus ticket.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Liz is a little too many sour grapes for my taste. She has been dropping anti-Mitt bombs onto Redstate for over a year now. I am surprised she is noting “McCain’s CPAC hijinks”. Does this mean she is souring on McCain? Is Giuliani now the Progressive GOP banner bearer in her eyes?
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Geoff,
Liz is well known for anti-Mitt hypebole. Take it with a grain of salt.
March 3rd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Was Romney really busing in out of state voters? I remember a lot of rumors that Romney did the same thing at the SRLC last year too. If this is true, it means that Romney doesn’t believe he has much active support to give him the win without rigging the straw poll.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
marK,
Even I was critical of McCain for not attending CPAC, it doesn’t mean that I’m souring on him though.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I don’t know how you can take a straw poll seriously unless all of the candidates made a full effort to win it, which there is no indication of here (at CPAC).
Obviously those who did well are going to tout the results and those who did not do well will minimize the results. But clearly a valid playing field entails all candidates competing at full strength.
How well did Senator Phil Gramm’s surprising tie of Senator Bob Dole in the 1996 Iowa straw poll help? Doesn’t look like much; Pat Buchanan knocked him out of the race in Louisiana.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:08 pm
2 quick points:
1) As to the vote. From what I could tell most people voted in the straw poll on the first day of the conference (Thursday). I’m not exactly sure how that would affect the vote but it’s worth noting that polling didn’t just happen after the big speeches on Friday. I’d love to see a pre- and post- conference poll.
2) I conducted video interviews with over a dozen Mitt volunteers. About half were from out of state and half were here on the ground. Almost everyone I spoke to was planning to go to CPAC but was happy to get a ride to the event. I know for a fact that some of the Mitt volunteers paid their own way to the event.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Romney didn’t pay these students. He simply paid for transportation and for their tickets to the event. They received no additional funds. Further, I think 200 is likely an overestimate as the Romney camp brought in, from what I’ve heard, two vans full of students. Even if we transform “vans” into “buses”, even the most liberal estimate of seating capacity puts Romney with about 80-150 “official” supporters. He received 21% of 1705 votes. So rougly 350 votes. Even using Liz Mair’s assessment of Romney’s contingent, that means Romney still received 10% of the non-Romneyites. Using the more likely estimate, he received between 13.33-18% of the non-Romneyites. Now who are these non-Romneyites? Well, they’re certainly not all objective, unbiased, observers. The other candidates had their advocates as well. But lets just assume, for the sake of argument, that Rudy only had 20% as many advocates as Romney and all the rest had half (though Brownback had considerably more then that from all accounts, Newt likely had less). Under Liz’s formulation, 350 people, only among the bottom 4 candidates, that were “spoken” for. We’ll round it down to 300 to be extra fair. Under the more likely formulation, we have about 180. In Mair’s world, that means we have a grand total of 1200 unaccounted for voters, in the real world, we’re left with about 1400. Mairland nets Romney with 12.5%, Ourland gives Romney 16.5%. In both universe’s Romney likely trails Giuliani. But in the second, a considerably more likely scenario, he’s not very far behind Giuliani (off the top of my head, I’d guess Giuliani nets 19.5% vs. Romney’s 16.5% of unaffiliated voters). But I can’t help but think that this sort of misses the point. Straw polls are fundamentally, and inherently, about money and organization first, and basic grassroots support second. That’s the entire point. And its part of the reason strawpolls are generally useful at showcasing certain types of information. This isn’t some dirty trick that Romney’s pulled, nor is it some astonishing triumph. It tells us, more or less, what we already know. Romney’s one of the strongest candidates in terms of sheer support among activists, but he truly excels in organization and fundraising. For my money, I’m willing to take marginally lower grassroots support, for vastly superior organization, and comparable financial holdings.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
I think there were 5000 people at CPAC from what I understand. Assuming that 200 is accurate (which I am sure Liz inflated it just a tad) and that none of them would have come without free bussing that still only accounts for 4%. Romney won by 4%. So if none of them would have come (highly doubtful) he still would have tied Giuliani.
Plus Romney spoke after the majority had voted. It would be interesting to do a straw poll then. I am sure Rudy wouldn’t have faired so well.
And if Rudy can’t get his voters organized for an event, hey, that’s something to consider also.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
looks like I was off on the 5000, sorry about that!!
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
LJ,
No, I was not thinking you were souring on McCain. I was questioning Liz’s loyalty to him.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Republius – your mention of Phil Gramm is spot on. Someone said here on this site a few days ago – forgive me since I can’t remember who – that these gatherings serve more to raise money for the event-holders than anything else. That’s true. No candidate said anything new or surprising that we all didn’t know before, so the speeches didn’t really matter. The voting was completely unscientific and representative of nothing, so the poll results really don’t matter. In fact two weeks from now no one will remember any of this except the CPAC Treasurer who will still be counting the gobs of $$$ that the event raised. I guess if someone held a gun to my head and forced me to pick a winner it would be McCain. If he’s pulling 12% of people who supposedly revile him, and that’s without even showing up, my guess is that reports of his political death have been greatly exagerated.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm
Some how if Giuliani had made the home run speech and won the poll, I think we would never hear the end of how important this was. Just admit you lost this one and you will try harder next time.
March 3rd, 2007 at 8:42 pm
According to Power Line, 34% of the voters had Rudy as their first or second
choice, which was the best of any of the candidates. Not bad for someone who
supposedly can’t get the conservative vote in the party.
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Romney may not be Liz’s favorite candidate, but I wouldn’t call this sour grapes or anti-Mitt hyperbole on her part. The New York Times was reporting on this Wednesday before the conference began.
Romney Focuses on Conservative Straw Poll
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/us/politics/01candidates.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Romney needed to generate positive headlines in the absence of frontrunner status to keep the money flowing. This CPAC straw poll victory, even bought and paid for, has already yielded Mitt a solid return on his investment (see below).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/03/AR2007030301078_pf.html
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1595815,00.html
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=2921580
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Before you go panning this poll as totally irrevelant. Compare these results with the results of an L.A. Times poll on Mar 3rd. That poll was of RNC members and the results are surprisingly similar, only Giuliani got 14% instead of 17%!
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-adna-timespoll4mar04,0,1270897.story?coll=la-home-headlines
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Nathan. . .I find that LA Times poll even more irrelevent than CPAC. They polled 135 people who live and breathe GOP politics every day of their lives. The only poll less representative would be a poll of White House residents on the popularity of President Bush. These narrowly focused polls have absolutely no bearing on anything, and are only quoted by whoever wins the respective vote. CPAC is a perfect example – the vote is being touted by supporters of three different candidates as a victory. I’m not saying it’s completely useless, but it’s far from representative of where a candidate stands among real “average” voters, which should be more important to the candidates.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Jake the only problem is that these polls represent people who are paying attention and thinking about it. The general polls don’t. If there was an election today Giuliani would win hands down. But the primaries are a year which will give the voting public time to get to know the candidates. There is much that the public doesn’t know about Guiliani that those at CPAC and the insiders do. If it doesn’t tell us everything it does tell us something.
Again I say, if Giuliani had won this poll it would be headlines on this blog as a major victory about why Republicans don’t care that Guiliani is a social liberal.
March 3rd, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Matt Lewis over at townhall echoes my final sentiments. The entire point of straw polls goes to organization. Romney has it, and he won. Its not terribly compelling complaining that he was simply more prepared then everyone else. Not when preparedness is primarily what it was measuring.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Waaaaah waaaaah! Boo hoo hoo! Someone call a wam-bulance! It just couldn’t be that a weird-o Mormon won! Criminy people, let’s get it together. His numbers woulda been double (OK maybe I exaggerate a bit for effect) if the votes were cast after Romney’s speech. That was one great speech. Who knew he had it in him?
March 4th, 2007 at 6:30 am
How could Romney NOT win, with all those busloads of students he had shipped in to vote for him. First of all, Romney was much better organized than Giuliani – - he should have won by 10 points. If the students werent bussed in, he would have tied Giuliani. Bottom line is, Romney did not do nearly as good as he should have, given all his “preparedness”. Rudy won the combined poll, remember that – - and Rudy was a last minute attendee.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Attendance estimates on CPAC are around 6,300 people. But only 1,700 participated in the straw poll. 64% of the straw poll respondents are under 25 years of age and 53% of the participants are students. With Romney and Brownback paying for and busing in students in exchange for their vote, (Romney more so then Brownback), the true winner was Giuliani who had no ground organization working the room at CPAC.
March 4th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
The truth of the matter is, this poll has good things for nearly all candidates.
For Romney, he won. Yes, his sour grapes opponents are doing their best to tarnish the win, but he still won. To the winner goes the spoils. Increased publicity, name recognition, volenteer and financial help, and a sense of momentum. His win has been widely reported across the MSM. He showed broad support from all branches of conservatism, the only candidate to do so.
For Giuliani, he came in a close second at a venue where he wasn’t supposed to do well.
McCain dissed the convention but still managed to pull in a fifth place finish.
Brownback and Gingrich put in solid shows.
So everyone had something good to spin. But the bottom line is Romney won.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
I think it shows the great organization that Romeny has if he can bus or van or cart people into and event. One of his greatest talents is leadership and organization. I would vote for him in an instance because I think his brand of leadership organization is the type that it would take to make the necessary governmental changes to bring this country back to an ideal level of fiscal spending, domestic security and economic growth.
I think it shows great leadership and organization from Romney, the type needed to transform Washington.
March 4th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
and that should be instant not instance above. Sorry, I have bad grammar and spelling. Forgive me.
March 4th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
One thing I don’t think has been mentioned- its likely many voted for Rudy simply because he is the current frontrunner in national polls, and/or he is also the only Republican currently leading Democrats in polls. People naturally want to throw their support behind a winner.
If Romney’s victory can be minimized by those who criticize his superior organization effort, Giuliani’s fine showing can be minimized by saying that a number of these votes for him were only because he is the perceived front-runner polls right now.
March 4th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I believe that in the first debate Giuliani is going to
begin talking in some detail about the techniques
he used to break the back of the Mafia, and how he intends as president to use some of the
same tactics and methods to break the back of Al Qaeda. If I
am not mistaken no one else, not McCain not Romney not Hillary not Obama,
has the credentials or the notches on the belt to show the voting
public this approach.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
I find the results of the CPAC straw very suspicious and misleading especially regarding the results for Sam Brownback.
Asked “who would be their first choice to be the Republican nominee for president,” CPAC attendees responded as follows: Romney 21%, Giuliani 17%, Sen. Brownback of Kansas 15%, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich 14%, and Sen. McCain of Arizona 12%.”
Conservatives concerned with “traditional values” chose Mr. Brownback as their nominee with 29% of their vote, followed by Mr. Romney at 22%.
CPAC probably thinks that Brownback is their best choice representing conservative values. But Brownback may not be as conservative as many would think. He’s a conservative about abortion and gay marriage but not much else. He supported the non-binding resolution on Iraq and supports amnesty for illegal aliens.
In order to broaden his appeal he has been sucking up to some radical feminists and other lefties. He fell for the whole spin and smear campaign of the Tahirih Justice Center the lead proponent of the International Romance Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA). This law that Senator Brownback sponsored along with is radical friends requires American men who use International matchmaking organizations to provide hard copy criminal and personal background information before they can communicate with a foreign lady. Now when he speaks on the subject he spouts their whole line almost verbatim: Men who go for foreign wives are mostly violent abusers who need to be controlled, yada yada. But the truth reveals the radical feminists used a few isolated examples of abuse cases coupled with their usualrumor mill anecdotes to paint a false image that all American men who seek foreign wives are serial rapists and abusers.
Senator Brownback’s 15% rating in the straw poll is laughable being totally inaccurate and represents the kind of media propaganda the radical feminists would be proud of. The real accurate numbers have consistently been pegged at 1-2%. Senator Brownback is a foolish politican who thinks his embracement of radical feminist ideas won’t be noticed by mainstream conservatives like myself who are getting angry. He doesn’t stand a chance of being the Republicans choicein 2008.
March 5th, 2007 at 1:20 am
How come Duncan Hunter didnt go better?
March 5th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Giuliani is a liberal. Anyone disagree?
March 5th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
How can you say Giuliani is a liberal…he saved New York from the liberals.
March 5th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
The libs were already there, he Rudy became Mayor. Now there are more of them than ever.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
So Giuliani’s a liberal, and Brownback bless his heart is unelectable. That leaves McCain and Romney. Hmmm, that’s a tough one. Who gave the better speech at CPAC? Oh yeah, McCain didn’t GO to CPAC….