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

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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.

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Video and transcript of Herman Cain’s Value Voter Summit speech

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Did you see Herman Cain’s speech at the Value Voter Summit? (transcript linked)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Excerpt:

And so the pursuit of happiness, just like my parents pursued their definition of happiness. Mom was a domestic worker. Dad was a barber, a janitor and a chauffeur. When Dad walked off of that small farm, Dad went to pursue his American dream with the only kind of equity he had — sweat equity. And he was able to achieve his American dream, he and my mother. And Dad wanted to give us a little bit better start in life, and they did. And Dad wanted to make sure that one day he could buy a whole house for the family.

You see, growing up in Atlanta, most of the time we lived in what my brother and I called a half a house. It was a six-room house with three rooms on one side, three rooms on the other side. We lived in half of it. My brother and I, being typical kids, used to say: Dad, why do we live in a half a house? (Laughter.) Dad said: It’s a duplex. (Laughter.) Because we didn’t know that Dad was saving for his dream, which was to one day buy a whole house for the family; and he did. Dad knew that the pursuit of happiness meant working those three jobs.

And Dad also knew that the pursuit of happiness meant the three things that they instilled in my brother and I if you want to achieve your American dream; and that is, your belief in God, belief in yourself and belief in the greatest country in the world, the United States of America. And we are exceptional!

And:

A reporter asked me just yesterday: Well, aren’t you angry — (laughter) — about how America has treated you?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Laughs.)

MR. CAIN: I said: Sir, you don’t get it. (Laughter.) I have achieved all of my American dreams and then some — (cheers, applause) — because of the great nation United States of America. (Cheers, applause.) What’s there to be angry about? Angry? (Applause continues.)

America’s — one of America’s greatest strengths is its ability to change. We have weathered those changes. That’s what makes this nation great.

And:

Now Mr. Cain, what are you going to do about Iran?

Well, here’s what I’m going to do about Iran. I’m going to utilize a capability that we have that most people are unaware of. I learned about these capabilities when I served on an advisory board for the Strategic Air Command before they changed it to STRATCOM. We are the only nation in the world that has the ballistic missile detection capability at sea as well as on land — better than any other country in the world. We have the ability to upgrade those ballistic missile defense systems on all of our AEGIS warships, and we have the ability to double the number of AEGIS warships and strategically place them anywhere in the world to detect missiles fired from those locations toward a friend or toward us and knock it out of the sky before it reaches its apex.

And so I would upgrade — make it a priority to upgrade all of our AEGIS surface-to-air ballistic missile defense capability on all of our warships all the way around — all the way around the world, make that a priority, and then say to Ahmadinejad: Make my day. (Extended cheers, applause.)

And:

They want you to believe that we can’t do this. Just like three months ago I was — the pundits, the political pundits said Herman Cain can’t get the nomination, Herman Cain cannot win the presidency, because he doesn’t have high name-ID, he doesn’t have a kajillion dollars and he’s never held public office.

But let me tell you what the American people are saying. They don’t care about a katrillion dollars! America wants to raise some Cain, not raise more money! (Cheers, applause.) That’s what the voters are saying. (Cheers, applause.)

Read the whole thing! Especially for those people who don’t think they need to know what an AEGIS-enabled warship is. Herman Cain knows, because he worked on missile ballistics for the Department of the Navy.

Believe it: the reliable Gallup poll has Cain down by 2

From Gallup:

Cain trails liberal Romney by two points
Cain trails liberal Romney by two points

Steve Ertelt from Life News notes some other recent polls.

Excerpt:

The tidal wave of recent support for Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is manifesting itself in two new polls showing the pro-life businessman now running competitively with pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

The first poll, conducted by the firm Poll Position, shows Cain beating Obama in a potential head-to-head matchup by a 43.3 percent to 41.3 percent margin. In the results the firm found in its automated voice survey technology poll, Cain takes a whopping 24 percent of the African-American vote — a much higher percentage that actual Republican presidential candidates have received in elections past.

[…]Meanwhile, a new Rasmussen poll shows Cain has pulled within three points of Obama in its most recent national telephone survey of likely voters. The latest 2012 hypothetical matchup finds the president earning 42% support, while Cain picks up 39% of the vote. Seven percent (7%) prefer some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.

“The latest results represent the best showing for Cain who appears to be experiencing a surge of support among Republican voters. Late last month, the former radio host trailed the president 39% to 34%.  Obama held a seven-point lead a month earlier and led Cain by 18 points in March,” Rasmussen notes.

“Cain draws support from 70% of Republican voters, while Obama picks up the vote from 79% of Democrats. Voters not affiliated with either party are evenly divided between the candidates. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Tea Party voters support Cain, but 55% of non-members prefer Obama,” Rasmussen continued.

Cain likely would do better against Obama, but the Rasmussen poll shows some Republican voters are concerned about his “9-9-9” tax reform plan, as most of those polled agree that if it becomes law, Congress won’t wait long to raise the tax rates higher.  Fifty-six percent (56%) of GOP voters favor Cain’s plan, but 66% of all voters think Congress would raise tax rates within five to 10 years of the plan’s adoption.

The businessman has acknowledged and addressed that concern, saying  his plan would require a two-thirds vote in Congress to raise taxes.

Rasmussen polls show Obama  leads all of the current GOP hopefuls except former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with whom he is essentially tied.  New numbers on the Romney-Obama match-up will be released tomorrow, Rasmussen indicates.

If you want to know why he is surging, watch the speech, or read the transcript.

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