{"id":1570,"date":"2010-02-21T14:10:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-21T22:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1570"},"modified":"2010-02-21T14:10:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-21T22:10:01","slug":"ron-pauls-cpac-poll-victory-what-does-it-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1570","title":{"rendered":"Ron Paul’s CPAC Poll Victory: What Does It Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot of jaws dropped yesterday when the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference announced the results of their presidential straw poll (pdf)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a surprise victory, Ron Paul far outpaced his GOP rivals with 31%. Mitt Romney, who has won in several previous CPAC polls came in second with 22%. Sarah Palin, a presumed conservative favorite, trailed badly with only 7%.<\/p>\n

So what might have contributed to these unexpected results? For one thing, it is not possible to make general representations about the CPAC attendees. Only 2,395 of them (out of approximately 10,000) voted in the poll. That means that 70% abstained. And there was no effort to develop representative sampling, so the results can’t be extrapolated to the attendees at large.<\/p>\n

Ron Paul has fired up a certain segment of conservatives with his independent streak and appeal to anti-government types. But he is also 74 years old (a year older than John McCain) and a plurality of CPAC voters (48%) were students. Apparently that demographic split didn’t hurt Paul. It may, in fact, point to the more anarchistic bent of youth, while older establishment conservatives lean toward the comfort food candidacy of Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

Some analysts have attributed Palin’s poor showing to her not showing. She announced weeks ago that she would not be attending CPAC in favor of the Tea Baggers Ball in Nashville. Of course there was nothing stopping her from going to both – except that the Tea Baggers paid her a hundred grand and CPAC is a gratis affair. Also, presidential hopefuls Tim Pawlenty, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee all showed up, gave warmly received speeches, and finished below no-show Palin.<\/p>\n

Some other questions posed in the poll may shed light on the presidential numbers. For instance, most voters (53%) were unsatisfied with the current crop of candidates. An overwhelming majority cite smaller government, a key Paul issue, as their main goal. Issues championed by Palin, like traditional values (9%) and national security (7%), were far less important to this crowd. And bombast seems to be out of favor judging by the high negatives of Glenn Beck (27%) and Rush Limbaugh (27%). You would think that number would get more attention. Nearly a third of CPACers have a negative view of their most prominent spokesmen. For some reason, Palin was not included in the favorability question. Not to worry. Perhaps that’s for the best as a recent poll showed that she is not particularly welcome<\/a> in the 2012 race anyway. 71% said they did not want her to run. That included 56% of Republicans, 65% of Independents, and even 58% of conservatives.<\/p>\n

So what does it all mean? The Hell if I know. The only thing that I come away from this with is the certainty that the roster of also-rans in this poll will shortly be adopting more of Ron Paul’s policies and rhetoric.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of jaws dropped yesterday when the organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference announced the results of their presidential straw poll (pdf). In a surprise victory, Ron Paul far outpaced his GOP rivals with 31%. Mitt Romney, who has won in several previous CPAC polls came in second with 22%. Sarah Palin, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152,1],"tags":[725,44,260,165,71,381],"class_list":["post-1570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-election","category-general","tag-cpac","tag-glenn-beck","tag-mitt-romney","tag-ron-paul","tag-rush-limbaugh","tag-sarah-palin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-pk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9271,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9271","url_meta":{"origin":1570,"position":0},"title":"CPAC: The Conservative Political Action Conference Sets Its Sights On The Future?","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/12\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This year's Conservative Political Action Conference begins Thursday and promises to be a treasure trove of comedy material that will give a big boost to Democrats and progressives. Having learned nothing whatsoever from the 2012 election, CPAC has dubbed this year's event \"America's Future: The Next Generation of Conservatives.\" Then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1565,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1565","url_meta":{"origin":1570,"position":1},"title":"Live From CPAC: Glenn Beck Via Fox News","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/20\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Fox News has notably declined to present important live events that feature President Obama or other Democrats. They even cut away from a live Republican gathering when Obama appeared to be getting the better of his GOP hosts. 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And this is on the big day when Trump is delivering his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Donald Trump Rally, Sieg Heil","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-rally-sieg-heil.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-rally-sieg-heil.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/trump-rally-sieg-heil.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9292,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9292","url_meta":{"origin":1570,"position":3},"title":"Sarah Palin At CPAC: Todd Got The Rifle, I’ve Got The Rack (Teat Party?)","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/16\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The long awaited appearance of Tea Party Queen Sarah Palin at the Conservative Political Action Conference finally went off this morning with a speech that the CPACers gobbled up voraciously. However, as might have been expected by more coherent observers, Palin's remarks never addressed much of substance. The entirety of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6391,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6391","url_meta":{"origin":1570,"position":4},"title":"Sarah Palin’s Top Seven CPAC Hack Attacks And Lies","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/12\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There is no better example of the right's embrace of idiocy than the rise of Sarah Palin. Conservatives take great pains to refudiate attacks on her intelligence (or lack thereof), but the very fact that they have to rush to her defense so often is evidence of her stupefying ignorance.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=219"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1562,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1562","url_meta":{"origin":1570,"position":5},"title":"Conservatives Gone Wild: CPAC Is All Up In Yo Face","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/17\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Conservative Political Action Conference will open tomorrow in Washington, D.C. and it promises to be totally off the hook. For those unable to attend, you might like to hear a bit about what you'll be missing. Fox News provided this account of the festivities that, this year, will be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}