Posted on 02/09/2008 5:09:21 PM PST by Bokababe
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney narrowly beat John McCain, 35 to 34 percent, in a straw poll of conservative political activists gathered Saturday in Washington — a vote that is viewed as a barometer of support from that major GOP voting bloc.
The announcement of Romney’s win was greeted by cheers from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. McCain is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.
Roughly three-quarters of the votes in the three-day CPAC 2008 straw poll were cast before Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race, and one-quarter after his withdrawal.....
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
I was not a Romney backer but I must admit his speech at CPAC was absolutely terrific.
I was a late convert to Romney.
It should still be up for grabs were it not for these ‘Winner take all’ (Even if you get only 35%) Primaries.
You lefted out the chicken pluckers and drywallers.
If the republican party limited the primaries to registered Democrats, McCain would have had it locked up months ago.
Stick with Mitt...the rest is sh_ _.
Mitt happens.
ROTFLMAO!
Me too. I couldn't stand Romney in the beginning. But he grew on me to the point where I wasn't only for Romney as a protest vote AGAINST McCain. I was actually FOR him. And deeply saddened by this withdrawal from the race.
Why o why more people don’t see Romneys potential is beyond me. I said in other threads several weeks ago he has the potential to be another Reagan.
Thirty-one percent said that if John McCain were the GOP presidential nominee, they would either vote for someone else, or not vote at all.
Huckabee fared even worse in the survey – 36 percent said they would not support him, or would back someone else, if he were the Republican nominee.
AHA....31% won’t vote for mccain (this could change of course,either way).
I wonder if mccain’s PR group has made any ground yet? lol.
ps i picked Mitt in 2006 based on his antiamnesty immigration policy.
Or anyone, for that matter.
Various reasons.
Some people think that once you’re pro-choice you’re always pro-choice and can’t change you’re mind.
Name recognition is another. I know lots of people that knew McCain, but not Romney. Then I’d say “he’s the guy that bailed out the SLC Olympics” and they would know who I was talking about. (Sidebar: surprisingly Fred had the same problem. I’d say “that guy that played the DA in Law and Order” and they’d say oh yea...” but they wouldn’t know his real career.)
Others see Mormon and won’t vote for a Mormon because somehow that legitimizes the religion (both soft and hard bigotry reasons here).
There is a few more but Romney was playing against a stacked deck to start with. He actually did fairly well considering. He’ll be back around.
Romney wins straw poll at CPAC ping!
My personal progression just makes me sick:
In the beginning I was for Hunter.
As it appeared Duncan wasn’t getting much traction and Fred Thompson began to make noises, I started shifting Fred’s way.
After Thompson announced and wrote his position papers and Duncan still wasn’t getting traction, I reluctantly shifted to Fred.
I voted for Fred in the SC PUB primary on Jan 19th.
Then Fred began to loose steam and eventually dropped out. I was very disappointed and began looking around again.
During this I decided I could not support Huckleberry or McCain.
I decided that Romney, although not what I would call a true conservative, was the last, best hope.
Then Mitt “suspended” his campaign. Woe is me.
My big concern now is that a RAT will be elected POTUS and play hell with the SCOTUS for the next four years. That could spell the end of our country.
But even with that concern I still have many, many problems with McCain. I just plain don’t trust him.
I have said over and over again, Romney was the best qualified candidate that we’ve had in many years. He was clearly superior to the rest of the field.
I think the main reason that he didn’t catch on are he wasn’t the insiders’ choice. The bighats in the Party wanted a pro-amnesty Party man, either Rudy or Juan. McCain was clearly the second choice. I think some major problems showed up with Rudy’s candidacy prior to the Iowa caucus, and they engineered a switch to Juan.
I think Romney was beyond the control of the Party bighats and reliably anti-amnesty. There was a reason Tancredo endorsed him.
I think your story is a very typical one for conservatives. I settled on Romney earlier because I did not see the others gaining any traction with the people that should have been supporting them. Romney is a conservative convert. He is not a flip flopper. I have not seen any evidence that he has ever migrated leftward (flopped) for political expediency. His political odyssey seems to have been to the right. He takes awhile to warm up to. I think being born into money has created an awkwardness in him that he has only recently overcome. I will work for him in 2012 when he goes up against Hillary.
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