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A curious thing happened this year at the Maryland Republican Party booth at the State Fair: A GOP presidential straw poll was won by Ron Paul, the idiosyncratic congressman from Texas who is a fierce critic of the Iraq war. Perhaps just as curious was the Maryland GOP's decision to trumpet the results in a news release last week with the headline: "Maryland GOP Presidential Straw Poll Is a Big Success; Grassroots Candidate Wins Surprise Upset." According to the release, Paul received 263 votes, and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (for whom Republican former governor Robert L. Ehrlich...

I was there to help count the ballots. These results should match the 'official' results which will be announced by the MD GOP in a news release tomorrow. Here are the results: Ron Paul - 263 (28%) Rudy Giuliani - 220 (24%) Fred Thompson - 188 (20%) Mitt Romney - 89 (10%) John McCain - 54 (6%) Mike Huckabee - 35 (4%) Tom Tancredo - 16 (2%) Sam Brownback - 12 (1%) Duncan Hunter - 3 (0%) Write Ins: New Gingrich - 17 (2%) Bob Ehrilich - 3 (0%) (Ehrlich is former Republican Governor of MD) Other - 11 (1%)...

The vote was supposed to be until 1 or 2 pm, but GOP security prevented registered Delegates from entering the building who were wearing Ron Paul signs at 10am. I was standing over by the Granny warriors when 2 delegates approached me and asked me to help them get into the convention center. They had showed up at the door a little before 10am wearing Ron Paul shirts. The security guard told them to change into proper attire. They left and changed then came back and it was now 10:10/10:20 and the security told them the registration was closed. Apparently...

Pictures and podcasts of Iowa Straw Poll can be viewed and listen to at http://symbibazo.com/dotnetnuke/

The much-hyped Iowa Straw Poll finally took place tonight, and the results are in. As expected, Mitt Romney was the victor. Of course, with top-tier candidates like Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson refusing to participate, anything less than a solid first-place finish would have been devastating to the Romney candidacy. Anyway, here are the complete results, along with my commentary: 1. Mitt Romney - 4516 votes - 31% This is roughly the same percentage George W. Bush got in 1999. And we all know what happened after that: the momentum from his victory here helped secure Dubya's place...

AMES -- Admittedly, this reporter was skeptical when numbers like 40,000 were thrown around when people were estimating the number of attendees at the Straw Poll. Now, we see where that number comes from. At 11:30, the crowd has arrived. Hundreds are chowing down on Hickory Farms barbecue under the Mitt Romney tent, while a smaller but still impressive number eats Famous Dave's next door at Sam Brownback's headquarters. At this moment, it appears that Romney's crowd is the largest. The former Massachusetts governor speaks to the assembled multitude first, around 12:45 CT, so his voters may be motivated to...

Thousands of Republicans – from Iowa and beyond – are strolling the grounds just outside of Iowa State’s basketball arena in Ames this morning as GOP candidates woo them with food, drink, music and games for the kids. Iowa GOP chair Ray Hoffman expects there to be more people here today than were here eight years ago when just over 20,000 voted in the Iowa GOP’s Straw Poll, a first test of organizational strength among the campaigns. “The wind is blowing just a little bit. People are out. Everybody's got a smile on their face,” Hoffman said of the crowd....

At a southeast Ames coffee shop Friday morning, U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter mingled with guests, telling stories of life on the campaign trail and why he is the best candidate to be president of the United States in 2008. The gathering space was filled with a few undecided voters and a mob of Hunter supporters. It was the sort of scene that replicated itself at restaurants, cafés and candidate headquarters in Mid-Iowa throughout the day Friday as Republican senators, congressmen and former governors sought to generate excitement and the last few votes that could lead them to a better...

Dear FRiends, I'm leaving in about an hour to leave for Ames, Iowa "first in the nation" Presidential Straw Poll. I'm attending a delegation with Fair Tax that left from Dayton, Ohio about noon today, and is schuduled to arrive in Illinois shortly to pick some of us up. Being from Illinois, I had to patiecently wait through the 2000 primaries (my first as a FReeper), only to find out the original field of nine candidates had been cut down to three by the time my state voted. My preferred candidate at the time (Forbes) had dropped out long...

Looking for info: Does one need to be a Resident of Iowa to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll? Not the primary - the Straw Poll?

As the state Republican convention de-camped, the sponsors of a presidential straw poll in which 429 delegates participated declared unannounced candidate Fred Thompson by 44 percent. Consider it yet another sign — like fights over a budget veto and immigration — of restlessness among the base. Thompson came within three votes of matching all those gathered by Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich put together. The poll was jointly conducted by the Young Republicans and the Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia. The results were as follows: Fred Thompson — 188 votes, or 44 percent Newt Gingrich —...

Fred Thompson has beat out all challengers in the WisPolitics 2007 GOP Convention Straw Poll beating out Wisconsin’s own Tommy Thompson by 11 votes. Maybe they all watched this video. For our commentary on Tommy Thompson’s speech and the entire 2007 WI GOP Convention with photos, click here. Here are the results:

I am wondering, when do we conservatives finally declare war on the mamby-pamby liberals who use our party as a platform against the Democrats, with no real difference in philosophy but rather a means for running a two card monty against us? When do we notify the Republican party that if they elect Rudy, McCain, or any other RINO, we will sit out the election and not vote? I think we should threaten to do this, and if our hand is called, lay it on the table. I am so sick of this. We have GW Bush, a "compassionate conservative"...

Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw sprang to the defence of Christmas today - insisting he wanted a "big conversation" with whoever suggested that decorations should be banned from offices. Mr Straw said he believed such "politically correct nonsense" was inspired by people wrongly "second-guessing" how sensitive others were about the issue. He said he had not come across anyone - atheist, agnostic, or of any religion - who held that people should not be allowed to celebrate the festivals of mainstream faiths. Christians were "delighted" to recognise holy days such as the Muslim festival of Eid and...

Not long ago in the hospital in which I once worked, a young male nurse was asked by the administration to remove the ironmongery with which he had recently adorned his face and ears. He was outraged by this assault on his inalienable right to mutilate himself in any way that he chose, which he believed to be narrow-minded. He was, after all, the owner of his face and ears in fee simple; they were his to dispose of as he saw fit. As it happens, he was a decent and dedicated young man, albeit one with the bad taste...

MUSLIM leaders have accused ministers of “stigmatising an entire community” and launching a “relentless barrage” against Islamic Britons.Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), has written to Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, accusing her of pandering to an “Islamophobic” agenda. The letter follows Kelly’s announcement last week that the government was cutting funding and official ties with the MCB, which until now has been the main body representing British Muslims. One senior Muslim source said: “The government is pandering to a far-right neocon agenda which is promoting Islamophobia.” The MCB says in the letter: “In recent...

This week's Jihad Watch videoblog at Hotair explores the controversy that Jack Straw, of all people, has kicked up in Britain by suggesting that he'd rather Muslim women didn't wear the niqab when they come see him.

Gordon Brown has backed Commons leader Jack Straw over his comments on Muslim women wearing veils.The chancellor told BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, it was important to "have a proper debate". Last week, Mr Straw said it would be better for integration if women did not wear veils as they were "a visible statement of separation". Earlier, Prime Minister Tony Blair said his colleague had been "perfectly sensible" in raising the issue. 'Cultural changes'Asked on BBC One's Six o' Clock News whether Mr Straw had been right to say it would be better for integration if people did not wear...

Straw UnveiledBy Robert SpencerFrontPageMagazine.com | October 10, 2006Jack Straw, the leader of the UK’s House of Commons and one of the most prominent members of the British Labour Party, has enraged British Muslims by saying on a BBC radio program that he would prefer that Muslim women not wear the hijab. Replying to a question to that effect, Straw said: “Yes. It needs to be made clear I am not talking about being prescriptive but with all the caveats, yes, I would rather.” Straw explained: “Communities are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers -- people being able...

AN unholy alliance of Muslims and far-Right extremists was last night threatening Jack Straw’s future as an MP as he was accused of playing the race card in a bid to salvage his career. Protesters took to the streets of Mr Straw’s Blackburn constituency yesterday to vent their fury over his call for Muslim women to stop wearing veils. One Muslim community leader, who helped him to get re-elected with a reduced majority of 8,009 last year, described the remarks by the Leader of the Commons as "like a family member going against us". One in four voters in Blackburn,...