http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN.aspx

…that “Big Government” conservatism is DEAD.

But haven’t we always known that straw polls are worthless?

but the headline will go out. Maybe those CPAC attendees should have thought about that and voted?

is that he’s a man of principle. I suspect that’s why the CPAC folks voted for him.

I think he’s out to lunch on certain issues, but I’d take him any day of the week over the current President.

He is exactly what this country needs to order right now.

Now that the term “retarded” has been added to the official list of words we are not allowed to say (thanks to Sarah), are we no longer allowed to refer to Ron Paul’s disciples as “Paul-tards”, or is that still OK?

If we can call them that anymore, does anyone care to suggest a new name?

I am thinking maybe “Paulunatics” or something along those lines.

I live in a solidly Democratic district in Connecticut (CT-05).

Among the longtime, working class families here, there is a passion for Ron Paul.

You’re jumping the gun to dismiss the result out of hand. It’s not like this was an internet poll that could be fixed with a couple of clicks. At the very least, it’s an organizational coup. I seriously doubt that liberals showed up in sufficient numbers at CPAC to determine the results. To be sure, I’m not suggesting that this is at all indicative of the Party at large, or that all of those votes were necessarily in favor of Rep. Paul himself rather than just a rejection of big government “conservatism”. What I will say, though, is that the Paul supporters who showed up at CPAC are probably the ones to work with, and shouldn’t be lumped in with those who spammed this site during the primaries.

I’d be surprised if Ron Paul runs in 2012. I wouldn’t be surprised if instead he endorses Gary Johnson, former two-term Governor of New Mexico and a strong libertarian-leaning conservative.

Frankly, this vote is very disappointing to me. I liken a Paul candidacy to the the trufer/birfer problem. Bottom line, Ron Paul will never be elected President and by voting him as the CPAC straw poll winner, conservatives have done themselves no favors. Ron Paul may be a likable enough guy in some circles, but he is simply not electable. The fact that he won a conservative straw poll doesn’t say a whole heck of a lot about our election options in 2012.

Glad I didn’t bother to go.

That level of enthusiasm for a candidate and his views has no place in the GOP. We should do everything we can to downplay what could be a powerful ally in the 2012 race.

We must do everything we can to alienate that crowd and ensure that anybody with a libertarian or independent viewpoint will be forced to turn to another party, so that we may keep the GOP pure.

(its actually a rational statement b/c my cat has a vicious foreign policy record)

At 77, he would be even older than Reagan was when he was reelected.

I hope this is just a symbolic vote, with this CPAC having the largest youth turnout yet. I think for the upcoming generation, the focus is going to be on fiscal conservatism and small government. And yes, I think government so small that it stays out of social issues as well.

I can bet it’s going to end up being shown as a stacked-deck straw poll giving R*n P**l that 31%.

Gave the rollout speech of his new campaign at CPAC and still lost to the Paultards.

I don’t care how Alex Knepper spins this as a “disaster” for Palin (who didn’t even show up). Mitt got owned by the Crazy Train Crowd at His Convention run by His Friends.

The straw poll is a joke! Ron Paul is a joke and Romney the deck stacked in his favor and couldn’t win against Liberals infiltrating CPAC and choosing Paul. Ron Paul’s support is fake. It is used to undermine conservatives. Palin did not even show and outpolled Pawlenty and Pence. The straw polls are worthless thanks to liberal pranksters. Reminds me of the Fox text polls.

What the heck, CPAC? Is this an internet poll now? Way to look stupid out there. Yeah, I want everybody reading this post to take a second now to visualize the Captain Picard facepalm picture.

Mitch Daniels the eventual 2012 nominee… I’m not certain about that, but I wouldn’t mind it at all. Right now, I’d still back Romney, I guess. Nevertheless if 2011 ends with Daniels looking like he has some real fight in him, I could very well jump on his bandwagon. He’d make a good candidate. Pair him with somebody from the south… Daniels/Jindal… that could work.

Any reason Thune didn’t make it on the ballot? I hear him considered as a 2012 dark horse more often than Daniels or even Pence.

Anyway, I don’t think it matters. This straw poll is only all the more pointless when you consider that there are two more to be had before the 2012 nomination is sewn up, and that it won’t matter even then.

There is no reason that we should know now before 2010 midterms who our 2012 candidate will be. We all know Romney and probably Huck are running, and we all know that the Ron Paul fans will do the same stuff that they did in 2008, but who cares now. We have a Democrat congress that is just begging to be swept, and that is what we need to focus on going forward. Looking at too much beyond that is losing focus in my opinion.

Hmmm, maybe not all of the conservatives have fallen for the bankrupt our country for foreigners creed yet. Good going, RP.

has a challenger in his district from the TEA Party Movement which is 10X more energized then the RP robots. I would like to see Paul go home and relax for the declining years of his life and leave the fixing of America to the Conservatives such a Marco Rubio!

Please come back. We miss you and need some sanity in the party? Paul’s a nut job.

That is right, Ron Paul wins! Get used to it. His middle name holds true.

Peace

Ron Paul’s one of the few honest politicians in Washington that will tell it like it is. He still has a lot of work to do to win the nomination, but I think he’s capable of pulling it off. I don’t think he’s right on everything, but I think he’s the most capable to fix our economic system at this time. Just my view.

My understanding is that over fifty percent of the CPAC attendees were under 30. The number of young kids running around here was astonishing. If anyone thinks the GOP is a party of old white guys, they should attend CPAC, and their minds will be changed.

For whatever reason, young people love Ron Paul. And we know that the Ronulans are very adept at voting in straw polls. This poll was restricted to CPAC attendees. So it’s not like one of those ballot-stuffed Internet polls. The young attendees simply voted in greater numbers than the rest of us old farts. And that skewed things heavily to Paul.

I attribute this fondness for Paul to a general lack of political savvy and wisdom. While the “youth vote” is enthusiastic, they have very little life experience on which to base their opinions. They have largely not had their pockets picked by the gubmint, and the only presidents they remember are Clinton, Bush and Obama, so they lack the experiences & memories of the Nixon, Carter and Reagan universe. Idealism is rampant in this population.

This straw poll indicates nothing other than that the audience at CPAC was tremendously skewed, age-wise. When the real elections roll around, we’ll see the same thing we saw in the 2008 primaries – Ron Paul will be an afterthought who wins a lot of online straw polls but not a single primary.

There is something to admire about his idealism, but a President cannot be tilting at windmills.

On the occasion of his great straw victory I sing:

“Hail, Knight of the Woeful Countenance,
Knight of the Woeful Countenance
Fare to the foe,
They will quail at the sight
Of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance!
Oh valorous Knight,
Go and fight for the Right,
And battle all villains that be,
But oh, when you do,
What will happen to you
Thank God I won’t be there to see!”

The anti-Christian and anti-Semetic vibe, not to mention the insults to our community’s intelligence, was just too much.

I hope you are aware of this, Erick. The Republican Party picks the next person in line. John McCain was the runner-up in the previous contested primary and he ended up the nominee in 2008. George W. Bush was a successful governor and son of the previous Republican President. His father was VP for eight years. President Reagan had came within a whisker of defeating Ford in 76. Nixon had be VP of the previous Republican President and a longtime candidate. Goldwater was one of the few exceptions of a Republican candidate “jumping the line” so to speak.

Mitt Romney is holding all the cards this go around. He dropped out early and did all the campaigning for McCain. Romney has the econ chops McCain lacked and he has the flash and presentation to sell conservatism. While Huckabee campaigned beyond usefulness and alienates swaths of the party, Romney has been spending every day mending fences and creating new alliances just like Nixon leading up to 68.

MItt Romney is a lot like Nixon actually, and I don’t think that is a bad thing honestly. He is smart. Capable. And it is his turn. That usually works in our primaries.

I agree you can make an argument that by virtue of his strong showing in 2008 (although thats relative, given that he was WAAAAY out in front early and still managed to lose rather badly) that Romney is in a strong position for 2012. You can also make a strong argument that by being the VP candidate in 08 that Governor Palin is in the strongest position for 2012. But ultimately all any of that gets you is a foot in the door, in order to win in 2012 you’re going to need the support of the People, especially the Tea Partiers, the Red Staters, the 9/12ers, the Campaign for Libertiers, you name it. We are the people who will decide who is the nominee, its not any politician’s turn, its OUR turn. We’re going to hold all the candidates feet to the fire, we’re going to hold them to a higher standard, and we’re going to have our voices heard. My favorite is Governor Palin, but whether its Palin, or Romney, or Paul, or anybody else you can think of (and I know the list is LOOONG) they’ve got to really earn it.

If you want to know why the Straw Poll went the way it did today, you don’t have to look at Mitt Romney, you don’t even have to look at Ron Paul, you just have to look at Obama himself. Everybody knows that the young people in America love two men above everybody else, Obama and Paul. In 2008 they mostly went with Obama, maybe because they agreed with him more, or maybe just because he had a better chance of winning. But now they’re turned off to Obama, as America in general has become. So where else would they go but to their other favorite? That is why Ron Paul won today’s straw poll, it isn’t because suddenly Paul is campaigning way more effectively, or Romney’s organization got weaker, or anything like that, its simply because a large number of people who used to like Paul but wouldn’t vote for him because they liked somebody else (Obama) better, now regard Paul as their favorite, and now they want to go out and vote for him, which is what they did today. This was the largest vote in the history of CPAC, young people are the reason. Its excellent news not just for Paul but for all Republicans, and not just for 2012 but more immediately, for 2010 also.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing for Mitt Romney by the way. If I recall correctly, in 2008 the Young Republican voters tended to favor Paul and Romney over everybody else. Romney therefore has a lot to gain from an increase in young voters also if he plays his cards right. Of course Govenror Palin is also popular among younger voters, espeically young women. Its a great time to be a Republican, we’re the party of the People, we’re the party of Young People, and as long as we continue to stand for what is right and stick to our Conservative Principles, the Young voters we saw at CPAC today could be part of our winning Coalition for literally Decades to come.

I’m stranded here in TX CD14 without effective representation in Congress. Would all you interstate Ronulans please come down and get your presidential candidate and take him home? Please! I know it is selfish, but I would just like a Congressman who pays attention to his constituents for a change. Please, come get him.
Here in CD-14 there are three men running against Paul. They are Tim Graney, Gerald Wall and John Gay. Yesterday I was able to see all four of them debate over in Katy at an event sponsored by the Katy Tea Party organization. The auditorium had about 600 attendees and was stacked with a loud, obnoxious Ronulan crowd. Apparently, they thought it was all grown-up like to yell things like “Liar” , “Neo-Con” and (randomly) “Audit the Fed” when any of the other contenders pointed out facts of how Ron Paul actually operates in Congress. They were a boorish group that demanded everyone listen to Paul, but chose to shout down his opposition.
A lot of you Ronulans follow Paul for the principled stand he takes on everything. One post above loved him because he votes no on everything. Well wouldn’t the country be so well governed if every Congressman voted no on everything?
Paul held no town hall meetings over the summer and instead had a BBQ for his out of state supporters. He is absent from his constituency which means we have squat for actual representation. So please, come get him.
Oh, and after yesterday’s performance, I am beginning to believe he will not survive the primary.
Now, excuse me, I have to go put up some more Graney signs.

>CPAC Straw Poll: Ron Paul Wins. CPAC Winner Rarely
>Get the Eventual GOP Nomination

Once again, the reason why Republicans are becoming a endangered species is staring them RIGHT IN THE FACE…and all I see are people putting their heads in the sand.

Keep ignoring the people who want Paul, who want libertarian style conservatism, and you do it at your own expense.

Most are just a hair away from walking away forever. 2012 will be the last chance to keep them around.

If you don’t want them fine….but good luck beating the dems who will have the country who are either employed by the govt or receiving government money on their side when 15% of us will never support the republicans again.