Tag Archives: Ron Paul

News

Who really won the Value Voter Summit straw poll? Cain and Santorum

1 Comment

CBS News explains who really won the straw poll at the Value Voter Summit.

Full text:

Rep. Ron Paul scored a decisive victory Saturday in a mock presidential election at the Values Voter Summit, trouncing fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, but an organizer of the straw poll suggested ballot-stuffing may have skewed the results.

In a press conference following the announcement of the straw poll results at the annual Washington gathering of social conservatives, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins all but dismissed the results as irrelevant, citing 600 people who registered Saturday morning and, he said, “left after Ron Paul spoke.”

A total of 1,983 ballots were cast. “You do the math,” Perkins said.

A year ago in the same contest, Paul came in second-to-last. Speaking briefly with reporters before the straw poll results were announced, the Republican lawmaker said, “If I win, it wouldn’t be as important to the media than if I lose.”

Paul has a history of scoring unlooked-for straw poll wins by packing the electorate with diehard supporters. But Perkins said it’s too early to take much away from Paul’s win. “Let me just take you back four years to this event, when we had a straw poll. Mitt Romney won that straw poll,” he said. “I think people are still in the process of deciding where they want to go.”

Paul got 37 percent of the vote. The rest of the ballots showed how widely social conservatives support is splintered among the rest of the field.

Two other conservative favorites, businessman Herman Cain and former Sen. Rick Santorum, took second and third place, respectively, with 23 percent for Cain and 16 percent for Santorum.

Perry and Michele Bachmann won 8 percent apiece. Mitt Romney got 4 percent of the vote and Newt Gingrich, 3 percent.

For Perry, who is struggling to regain momentum after some disappointing showings in debates and the polls, the results represent a disappointment. The Texas governor is counting on voters who share his socially conservative views to help power his candidacy into the top tier of Republicans. He didn’t get the ringing endorsement he might have wished out of the Values Voter Summit. Instead, the gathering put Perry in the midst of a controversywhen the Dallas pastor who introduced him Friday later told reporters that Romney’s Mormon faith is a “cult” and “not Christian.”

Perkins said his organization did “everything to preserve the integrity of this straw poll,” including denying campaigns from buying blocks of tickets, “which they attempted to do this year.” But Santorum on Friday seemed dubious, and told National Journal that his success in the polls would depend “on how many people, how many campaigns, tried to buy a bunch of tickets and try to stack the poll, which unfortunately happens.”

The victory for the longtime congressman and three-time presidential contender over his Republican rivals in the presidential contest was all the more surprising because Paul’s principled libertarianism sometimes puts him at odds with the views of social conservatives on issues such as gay marriage and drug laws.

But in a speech hours before the straw poll results were announced, Paul argued that his staunch fiscal conservatism and dogmatic views on liberty were in tune with family values and the Bible.

A friend of mine “Neil” who attended the Value Voter Summit had these comments about what really happened:

Because these folks did not stay for the entire Summit.Those of us who were there knew the difference. It’s like a big family, everyone is kind and talks to each other. We see each other in the hotel halls and we chat and ask where people are from. It’s a special group of people who donate to FRC, AFA, Heritage and are Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox and a few Jewish believers. We had lunch with each other, shared stories of frustrations with our churches and our elections and compared notes.

The Ron Paulites, didn’t mix, didn’t go to any break out sessions, didn’t eat with us.

So they did not share the same values, the same goals or the same relationship with FRC or AFA. They didn’t even listen to the rest of the speakers (all day Friday and the rest of the day Sat). They were not Values Voters or part of our family.

The straw poll was supposed to reflect the VVS family. This is what we guys voted.

If you delete the 600 Ron Paul voters, you get this:

  • Herman Cain 456 33%
  • Rick Santorum 317 23%
  • Rick Perry 159 11%
  • Michele Bachmann 159 11%
  • Ron Paul 134 10%
  • Mitt Romney 79 6%
  • Newt Gingrich 59 4%

Ron Paul thinks that protecting the unborn and protecting a child’s right to a mother and father are “state issues”. He is moderate on social issues – nothing like Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, for example. He doesn’t have the history of activism on these issues because he thinks that they are not federal issues. Fair enough, but that’s not socially conservative.

News

Videos from the Monday night Tea Party Republican debate

9 Comments

Here are the videos of the debate on Youtube:

ABC News says Michele won, and I can’t disagree, since she is my preferred candidate, by far. Go Michele!

Excerpt:

With her standing in the polls slipping, Michele Bachmann needed to find a way to capture the spotlight she held earlier this summer.

She just may have done that tonight at the Tea Party Express/CNN debate in Tampa, Florida.

Bachmann, the founder of the Tea Party Caucus in the House, knew her audience well and it showed.

Unlike former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Bachmann took a pass at criticizing front-runner Texas Gov. Perry on Social Security and she refused to weigh in on Perry’s comment last month that  Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be “treasonous.”

Instead she waited patiently to pounce on Perry when the debate turned to the issues she knew would connect with the audience in the hall.

She attacked Perry for his decision to require HPV vaccinations in Texas, calling it “a government injection through executive order” and a “violation of a liberty interest.”

She knows that while the Tea Party activists are not fans of the federal government, they don’t love big business either.

“We cannot forget that in the midst of this executive order,” said Bachmann, “there was a big drug company that made millions of dollars because of this mandate…The drug company gave thousands of dollars in political donations to the governor and this is just flat out wrong”

She also attacked Perry on illegal immigration – another issue that plays well in a GOP primary.

A longer review from the UK Telegraph emphasizes that Perry got beat up Monday night.

Ron Paul got booed for his foreign policy views:

More Michele in the latter half of this clip:

Christian philosopher Doug Geivett has another review of the debate here. He thinks Bachmann won, as well.

I think right now my candidates are 1) Bachmann and 2) Santorum a distant second. I really think we need to make Michele Bachmann the nominee.

News

Newt Gingrich outstanding in Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate

2 Comments

Not my favorite candidate, but he turned in the best performance.

The Washington Times reports.

Excerpt:

Mitt Romney and Rick Perry wasted little time in going straight at each other Wednesday night, sparring over whether the former’s business experience or the latter’s decade as governor of Texas is better training for boosting jobs.

“Michael Dukakis created jobs three times faster than you did, Mitt,” Mr. Perry said, referring to the former liberal Democratic governor who lost the 1988 presidential election.

“George Bush and his predecessor created jobs at a faster rate than you did, governor,” retorted Mr. Romney, a one-term Massachusetts governor who made his fortune leading a capital investment firm, as he pointed to the man whom Mr. Perry succeeded in 2000.

With the Republican presidential nomination on the line, the Republican field squared off at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in a nationally televised debate in which the candidates clawed slightly at each other, but aimed their chief darts at President Obama on issues such as the economy and his health care initiative.

“Obamacare took over one-sixth of the economy,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican. “This is the issue of 2012, together with jobs. This is our window of opportunity. If we fail to repeal Obamacare in 2012, it will be with us forever and it will be socialized medicine.”

But even that issue opened up Mr. Romney to more attacks, this time from the rest of the field, none of whom backed the individual mandate that requires everyone to purchase insurance and that lies at the heart of the health care bills that Mr. Romney signed in Massachusetts and the one Mr. Obama signed, a few years later, for the whole country.

Mr. Perry said Massachusetts’ experiment “was a great opportunity for us as a people to see what will not work, and that is an individual mandate in this country.”

For Mr. Perry, the debate was his first chance personally to mix things up with his fellow candidates, and to show Republican voters that he deserves the early adulation he’s received from many of them.

He seemed to stumble over a couple of answers when asked to square his past rhetoric with his stances as a presidential candidate, but had his strongest moments when he was defending his state’s specific record during his decade as governor.

He also didn’t back down on his criticism of Social Security as a Ponzi scheme, and said that applied despite former Vice President Dick Cheney, who earlier Wednesday had suggested such language was over the top.

“If Vice President Cheney or anyone else says that the program that we have in place today, and young people who are paying into that expect that program to be sound and for them to receive benefits when they reach retirement age, that is just a lie,” Mr. Perry said.

John Ruberry (Marathon Pundit) posted this summary:

Here’s my brief summation of tonight’s Republican presidential candidate at the Reagan Presidential Library.

Perry was the winner, mainly because he didn’t make any gaffes–no one did–and he answered some tough questions. He refused to back down from calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.” However, if he wins the GOP nomination, he just wrote his own attack ad and supplied the video. Granny-scaring is what the Dems do best. The other top-tier candidate, Mitt Romney, was well-spoken and on top of the issues, as he always is.

Michele Bachmann: Held her own but didn’t gain ground. But she needed to move up tonight.

Rick Santorum: Inspired, articulate, and passionate. He won’t be going away.

Jon Huntsman: I like his jobs plan, but he muffed the global warming question.

Newt Gingrich: The best performance tonight. But I fear he has dug himself to big a hole for him to even contend for the nomination.

Ron Paul: I’m not a supporter, but he stood firm with his Libertarian beliefs.

Herman Cain: What happened? The biggest washout tonight. He came across unsure, and his 9-9-9 program sounds like he’s marketing toothpaste, but he’s selling it without confidence.

As for the questions from the moderators, NBC’s Brian Williams and Politico’s Jonathan Martin, I have this to say: Man, do I miss Tim Russert. And why do you think a question about evolution is relevant?

I was not impressed with Perry’s speaking ability, but he had command of the facts, which is good. Santorum also did well.

Erick Erickson’s summary of the debate at Red State.

Excerpt:

First, I don’t think Perry had as strong a performance tonight as he could have. He stumbled several times. Romney had a stronger performance. But then, Romney has been in this dog and pony show since 2007. Perry is just stepping up to this level. He made no major mistakes, but could have been stronger on the HPV issue and a few other issues.

Second, it is clear Perry is the front runner given the pile on from the other candidates. It was not just pushed by MBNBC and the Politico. The other candidates took willful potshots against Rick Perry. Perry, despite some stumbles and the pile on by the moderators and other participants, held his own and will only get stronger the more of these he does.

Third, Michele Bachmann’s star has faded. The recognition of this is the reporter focus on Perry v. Romney buttressed by Bachmann’s own outgoing campaign manager, Ed Rollins, that the race was a two man race between Perry and Romney.

Fourth, Newt Gingrich. What an intellect. What a mind. What a debater. What might have been.

[…]Finally, I think Mitt Romney’s “play it safe” strategy is about to come crashing down on his. In the exchange between Perry and Romney on social security and ponzi schemes, Perry gave a less than stellar answer. But Romney then tried to pile on by rejecting the idea that social security is a failure.Republicans should pay attention to this. Mitt Romney proclaimed making several generations of Americans dependent on the federal government for their retirement a success. That may play well to Washington, D.C. But it increasingly doesn’t even play well with senior citizens worried about their grandchildren’s futures.

I think Romney is just too liberal to win this primary.