And, of course, the crowning moment of CPAC was the straw poll which was conducted on Thursday and Friday with the results announced at the end of the conference. Ron Paul won the poll by a sizeable margin, with Mitt Romney coming in a respectable second and Gary Johnson coming in third just ahead of Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie. Perhaps most interesting about the poll was the less publicized section of questions about issues and attitudes, which showed overwhelmingly fiscally conservative and limited government viewpoints among the attendees, along with a desire to downplay divisive social issues.
Almost immediately the spin was out in the media that Paul essentially bought the poll by bringing in ringers to vote and that none of it meant anything, but the truth is that the only voters actually bussed in were brought by Romney and that most of the Paul supporters paid their own way, though at a discounted ticket price. It's also telling that Gary Johnson, who is arguably even more libertarian than Ron Paul, came in third in the poll ahead of a bunch of establishment candidates, as well as coming in first in the little known poll for second choice. The attendees at the convention skewed very young and very much towards libertarian views, representing the tea party and the grassroot. They responded to candidates who had a message of change and reform.
Various groups tried to counter or balance the results of the straw poll and got some media attention for it. Hot Air did an online poll which produced very different results leaning towards more traditioal conservatives. TownHall has offered a series of monthly polls which seem much closer to realistic Republican primary results and the Republican Liberty Caucus did a straw poll at their own convention right after CPAC where Governor Gary Johnson won first and Ron Paul came in second.
While it remains clear that former Governor Mitt Romney remains the candidate to beat, that was also true of Rudy Giuliani in 2008 and he went nowhere fast. Romney may be the establishment choice and the nominal frontrunner in the Republican primary, but his association with socialized medicine is damning and his efforts at CPAC were fairly feeble. His campaign booth in the exhibit hall was abandonned most of the time and the new slogan he debuted - "Believe in America" - is as bland and unappealing as Romney himself.
Article comments
1 - Alan Kurtz
Dave, I direct your attention to comments #41 and 49 through 51 on another thread. Does your attendance at the Conservative Political Action Conference explain the unaccountable delay in publishing Mr. Mungin's article? Did you make no provision to have another BC editor cover for you in your absence? Mid-February isn't exactly the peak vacation period in the USA. There must've been someone who could've filled in for a few days.
2 - Clavos
Alan,
For the record. According to the log on Horace's article, he created the article on February 8. He then made changes to it for several days, and did not put it into Pending until February 17, and it was published on February 18.
As a writer yourself, you know that, until an author places the article in Pending, it cannot be published because while it is in Draft it is assumed to be not ready for publication. Once the writer places the article in Pending, we make every effort to publish within 24 hours, as was the case with this article.
3 - Alan Kurtz
Thank you for the response. I will direct Mr. Mungin to your explanation. Perhaps he is mistaken in saying his article "just sat there" for a week, implying that it was pending during that time.
4 - Andy Marsh
Come on Alan, let Mr. Mungin play the victim, he seems to be good at it!
5 - Dave Nalle
I know nothing about the Mungin article. I went out of town for a week starting on the 8th, had made arrangements for other editors to cover this section, and returned on the 14th. At no time prior to the 8th or after the 14th did I see any article by Mr. Mungin in the pending queue, which other editors did an excellent job of clearing out.
This is the best you can do with the comment space on this interesting article? Why do I bother?
Dave
6 - Alan Kurtz
Dave, it's been more than three days since your article was published. Given that there are no other comments apart from ours about the Mungin affair, your article was obviously not as "interesting" as you claim.