FreeRepublic Opinion Poll #177 - (Duncan Hunter vs Fred Thompson) - Question for FR Staff

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[davidosborne]

Free Republic Opinion Poll: Who do you support in the GOP presidential primaries?

Composite Opinion
Fred Thompson	43.8%		3,311
Duncan Hunter	12.1%		912
Rudy Giuliani	10.6%		802
Newt Gingrich	10.1%		767
Ron Paul	6.8%		512
Tom Tancredo	5.5%		414
Mit Romney	4.6%		351
Undecided/pass	4.2%		315
Other	1.3%		99
John McCain	1.0%		76
	100.0%		7,559
Member Opinion
Fred Thompson	45.6%		1,474
Duncan Hunter	15.0%		484
Rudy Giuliani	10.0%		322
Newt Gingrich	9.5%		307
Undecided/pass	5.4%		173
Mit Romney	4.8%		154
Tom Tancredo	4.1%		132
Ron Paul	3.9%		126
Other	1.2%		39
John McCain	0.6%		20
	100.1%		3,231
Non-Member Opinion
Fred Thompson	42.4%		1,837
Rudy Giuliani	11.1%		480
Newt Gingrich	10.6%		460
Duncan Hunter	9.9%		428
Ron Paul	8.9%		386
Tom Tancredo	6.5%		282
Mit Romney	4.6%		197
Undecided/pass	3.3%		142
Other	1.4%		60
John McCain	1.3%		56
	100.0%		4,328

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[Beagle8U]

“If Hunter were to be nominated, the Demoncrats will try to paint him as unethical, claiming that he accepted nearly a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions from missile defense contractors over the past five years, including $46,000 from un-indicted co-conspirators implicated in bribing Hunter’s friend and San Diego colleague, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who resigned from Congress after pleading guilty. Cunnningham is now serving time in prison for influence peddling.”

I’m not so sure the Rats would try to smear Hunter with that. If you check into it you’ll find that the defense contractor in question donated far more to top Demonrats and in fact every single member of the armed services committee received campaign funds from him.

The investigation into any possible wrong doing found none on any of them.

The Rats would be foolish to try to play that game.

[showme_the_Glory]

I have no problem with having a poll but when others use it to restrict comment and participation, then it stinks.

like having a forum for conservatives that gets over run by NY liberals, I agree.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks for the enlightening discussion.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

Do you get to wear shirts like this?

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Well at least he has a voting record, one that the liberal media hasn't wanted to promote so he hasn't made headlines.

Here is the deal, a majority of Republicans are looking for a candidate just like Hunter. At least give them a chance to vote before you decide he cannot win. I'm convinced our election outcomes have more to do with whatever con argument the party strategist sold to voters than it does about true representation of the people's values.

[Born to Conserve]

Why are there no evil newbies voting for McPain?

Face it, for whatever reason, and for what it’s worth this early, Fred is whooping rear end.

[brothers4thID]

If a FR member doesn’t know about Duncan Hunter, at this point, it is through willful ignorance. There’s something like 15 threads per day about him. You can lead an elephant to water...

[darkwing104]

Unless I have a breakdown of who voted it's hard to tell.

Fred Thompson has name recognition. Duncan Hunter is still unknown to a majority of conservatives. Most Republicans I work with never heard of him.

[davidosborne]

Most Republicans I work with never heard of him.

Same here.. BUT but EVERY conservative that I have asked to "take a look at Duncan Hunter" has told me 2 things

1. Thanks for letting me know.. and
2., I had no idea we had such a GREAT candidate in the race, I will seriously consider voting for him in the primary

What more can Duncan Hunter supporters ask for...

[Josh Painter]

Beagle8U wrote: “The Rats would be foolish to try to play that game.”

They’re already playing it. Just google “Duncan Hunter Randy Cunningham” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. And it’s not just CommieRat hate sites, either. It’s USA TODAY, Sign On San Diego, The WaPo (which was so effective in destroiying George Allen), etc.

Duke Cunningham is the albatross that Hunter will forever have around his neck, just as Fred’s friendship with McCain is extra weight for Thompson to carry.

[Graymatter]

Oh the horror!

It's worse than that. The poll asks "Who do you support..." instead of the correct "Whom do you support..."
Sure leaves a mark. :(

[Beagle8U]

“They’re already playing it. Just google “Duncan Hunter Randy Cunningham” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. And it’s not just CommieRat hate sites, either. It’s USA TODAY, Sign On San Diego, The WaPo (which was so effective in destroiying George Allen), etc.”

I think IIRC that those are old articles and it died out when they didn’t find anything that would stick to Hunter.

This is from Wikipedia on Hunter, and they lean far left...

“3. Hunter and Cunningham, along with more than 100 members of the House and Senate – Republicans and Democrats – accepted money from ADCS Inc. owner Brent Wilkes, former MZM Inc. president Mitchell Wade, their relatives, employees or political action committees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign watchdog group. In December of 2005, Hunter directed that the contributions he received from Wilkes and Wade be given to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.[28] “We had options,” said Bruce Young, treasurer for Hunter’s re-election campaign. “We could keep the money, send it back, send it to the government or send it to a charity. We just felt that because of the situation, we would rather not have the money.”[29]”

They found there is no there, there.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

In my opinion, such polls as these border on being silly and a waste of time. Think for a minute of all the things that might happen before the next primary (no man knows the hour). We should be more concerned with what the current Congress and President are doing with this country.IMDO

HE IS RISEN. See you all tomorrow at Sunrise.

[Tunehead54]

I wonder, how many posters didn’t vote in the poll?

---

I didn't and I'm not a complete newbie. Right now I'd vote for Fred - I want a President that will "act" like a conservative. ;-)

Still its early ... Hunter was hit as a spender by a San Diego observer - that's my only question about him at the moment but I confess that as a procrastinator extraordinaire that I'm not closely following all these candidate campaign threads ...

[Sonny M]

I doubt that I am the only “number cruncher” out there.. especially when the only arguments I hear against Duncan Hunter is that he can’t win because no one knows who he is.. to which I say it is too early to make THAT argument.. but it is NOT too early to discuss which way folks are leaning this early in the game... IMHO..

While I personally favor Thompson, I've never believed in the whole "no one knows who he is" knock on Hunter.

Most candidates for the last few cycles start off that way.

Howard Dean was an unknown and wound up making an impact until he self destructed, John Edwards was only a name because Gore considered him as VP and he has turned that into a career.

Steve Forbes at one time was not considered anything viable, but Bush took him seriously enough to build his tax plan with Forbes being on his mind. The nomination isn't going to be given in a few days, these guys have loads of time to get name recognition and campaign and become viable.

Hunter can be a player and be viable if he works at it and his supporters do alot to get him name ID.

[WFTR]

While the question that you pose is interesting, I'm not sure what it would gain us in terms of advancing Mr. Hunter's candidacy. Even if there were a little prestige at Free Republic in being more popular with people who've been here the longest, that prestige on Free Republic isn't likely to translate into many votes. I'm even skeptical of whether there's any real prestige in having been a member for a while.

I think the real secret for Mr. Hunter will be in people promoting his candidacy in small ways in there regular lives. College students could buy Duncan Hunter campaign buttons at Cafepress.com and put a button on their bookpacks. People could buy a T-shirt at http://www.cafepress.com/hunter_08 where part of the proceeds of the sale go to the campaign. They could then wear the T-shirt to gun shows, to festivals, to the gym, when they're jogging, and at other times when they'll be around people. If people see the name, they'll think that this guy must have some sort of following and maybe some of them will do a little reading.

The other thing folks can do is send the campaign a contribution. If he has more money, he can do more traditional campaigning. With people looking at fundraising so much, a big jump in the second quarter will give him momentum this summer.

Bill

[AuntB]

I've been "paying attention" for quite a while. The only thing that I knew about him five months ago was that he was a congressmen from somewhere that had a Marine son in Iraq.

Well, lots of people believe they are paying attention. Where were you when Hunter brought out the battle against Dubai ports, Chinese operating Long Beach,MFN status for China, property rights, Gitmo food, the stupid census forms, 20 years of fighting to secure the borders and country and much much more?

[AuntB]

They’re already playing it. Just google “Duncan Hunter Randy Cunningham” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. And it’s not just CommieRat hate sites, either. It’s USA TODAY, Sign On San Diego, The WaPo (which was so effective in destroiying George Allen), etc. Duke Cunningham is the albatross that Hunter will forever have around his neck, just as Fred’s friendship with McCain is extra weight for Thompson to carry.

Oh please, those dots don't even connect. None of those sources has ever been able to point out any bribes or wrongdoing by Hunter. He was a congressman from the same area as Cunningham, both strong on military and that's about it.

If you had anything you'd post it, so don't insinuate.

Here's information on 'porkers' and Hunter ain't there.

Here's the list since 2001 of the porkers of the month. Lots of R's and D's there, but no Duncan Hunter or House Armed Services Committe, which he headed .

They do show as porkers among many:

Tommy Thompson, Sen. Robert Bennett, Sen. Joe Lieberman , Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison , Rep. John Peterson (R-Pa.) , Sen. John Thune,Reps. Tom DeLay , Sens. Hillary Clinton , Sen. Larry Craig

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_porkerofthemonth_hallofshame

DUNCAN HUNTER (R-CA) Personal Financial Disclosures Summary: 2005 Agreements for Future Employment: 0

Compensation: 0

Gifts Received: 0 (Amount: $0)

Payments to Charitable Organizations in lieu of Honoraria: 0 (Amount: $0)

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pfds.asp?CID=N00006983

And Thompson did support MCCain and his CFR.

[nctexan]

"Where were you when Hunter..."

Reading FR, watching FOX news, watching CSPAN, listening to Rush, reading a fair number of newspapers and conservative blogs.

Don't try to give the impression that Hunter had more than minimal coverage on the national scene... I agree that he may have accomplished some very worthy things, but he had not put himself into the position of national prominence that we would like now.

I love his values and positions, I admire his work, but I still question his effectiveness in communicating his message and making things happen on the big stage.

I sincerely hope that he can find a way to turn it up, but he's been in the 1-2% space for months now... and that's gotta change.

[Paul Ross]

Net cost of legislative agenda for most recent legislative year
--Duncan Hunter -$16 billion

And how much of that was for Defense supplementals and Border-Enforcement and Fence supplementals that Clinton and Bush have significantly neglected, refusing to request....h'mmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

I would bet almost all of it.

Hence, they are not "legislative agenda" so much as Duncan Hunter being responsible for JOB # 1 protecting the country. Enforcing our laws. Protecting us. Not your ridiculous rating.

By way of contrast, Hunter's ACU rating is 100%. I will take Human Events rating, and the Center for Security Policy's any day of the week.

Now, it is also interesting to note that Duncan Hunter routinely sponsored a serious proposal...every single year...to implement a civilian sector cut of the bureaucracy by 25,000 employees annually. How did Fred Thompson vote on that?

Anyways all that aside...I'm curious about your name tag. Is that what you do for a living?