http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/20/romney.values/
"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney narrowly won a straw poll of mostly Christian conservative voters at the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit held this weekend in the nation's capital.
The former Massachusetts governor won almost 28 percent of the 5,776 votes cast, edging out former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who finished 30 votes behind him.
"The vote is a validation of Governor Romney's core message to grass-roots Republican activists," Romney campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said at the close of the two-day conference.
"His is a campaign built on the important issues of national security, economic security and stronger families."
Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished in third place, with 15 percent of the vote, and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson finished in fourth place with 10 percent.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani finished with 107 votes, just under 2 percent of all ballots cast, and Arizona Sen. John McCain was just behind Giuliani, with 81 votes.
"It's hard to gauge how big a victory this is for Romney because we're not entirely sure whether these voters represent the larger Christian conservative constituency," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said.
"Romney won the Ames, Iowa, straw poll in August by spending a lot of money. We don't know how much of an organizational effort was behind this victory," he said.
"Romney's true acceptability to Christian conservatives will not become clear until we see how he does in January in the Iowa Republican caucuses and the South Carolina Republican Primary.
"But the results suggest that being a Mormon may be a barrier for winning the support of Christian conservatives," Schneider said.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows that Americans' attitudes toward Mormonism appear to be changing.
Half of those surveyed last weekend considered Mormons Christian, up from 34 percent last year.
Far fewer people voted in person at the conference than participated online or by mail.
Huckabee was the clear winner of the in-person balloting, with 488 of the 952 votes. Romney was second with 99 on-site votes.
Only members of the council's political arm could vote.
During the voting period, which began in August, the conservative organization saw its membership increase from about 5,000 members to 8,500, said Tony Perkins, council president.
"The straw vote is a setback for Fred Thompson, a Southerner who is trying to lock up the conservative wing of the party. Thompson's 10 percent is an embarrassingly weak showing," Schneider said.
But Thompson's spokeswoman saw the results in a different light.
"Fred Thompson was happy to have received an enthusiastic response and standing ovation from attendees at the Values Voters Summit," Karen Hanretty said.
"While it's easy for a candidate to buy votes in an unscientific straw poll, what matters more is that Christian conservative voters favor Fred over the other candidates, as evidenced in a recent CBS poll," she said.
Powerful voting bloc
Christian conservatives carry a lot of clout within the Republican Party.
They vote in great numbers in the Republican primaries, especially in the crucial early presidential contest states of Iowa and South Carolina. That's one reason all of the GOP presidential candidates came to Washington to court their vote.
Coming into the Values Voters Summit, Christian conservatives appeared to have problems with all of the top-tier GOP White House hopefuls.
The front-runner in the national polls, thrice-married Giuliani, supports the legal right to an abortion.
Romney -- the leader in Iowa and New Hampshire, which will hold the first primary -- supported the legal right to abortions before changing his stance.
His Mormon faith may be a problem for some values voters.
Thompson -- who is second in most national polls -- is against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He believes the states should decide. Some top Christian conservative leaders have questioned Thompson's commitment to their core issues.
McCain also opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and he's had a rocky relationship over the years with Christian conservative leaders.
Huckabee could be considered the ideal candidate for evangelical voters -- he's the only minister.
But he's not well known, and regardless of his strong performances in the Republican presidential debates so far this year, few think he has a shot at winning the GOP nomination.
The other presidential hopeful who also saw eye-to-eye with the religious right is no longer a candidate. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas dropped out of the race for the White House on Friday due to a lack of campaign cash.
While Giuliani received only polite applause from the audience after his comments, Huckabee won several ovations.
The former Baptist preacher called legalized abortion a "holocaust."
"Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our work force," he said.
"It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our work force had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."
Huckabee also spoke adamantly of the need for conservative lawmakers to show no compromise on fighting for a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
"I'm very tired of hearing people who are unwilling to change the Constitution, but seem more than willing to change the holy word of God as it relates to the definition of marriage," he said."
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A lot of interesting stuff happened at the Values Voters Summit. People inside the building voted overwhelmingly for Huckabee after hearing him speak, while internet voters voted for Romney. What does that mean?
IMO, it means the plain spoken Huckabee has resonance with values voters, even if the leaders or the Religious Reich do not feel he is a sexy enough candidate and as such are not prepared to endorse him.
It should trouble all of the other republican candidates, because if you look at the polls, the ONLY republican who appears to be surging is Huckabee. To me, it appears that the religious vote is starting to accept the candidates in the race, even if their leadership only last month suggested that none of the candidates were up to snuff.
The individual rank and file of the religious right see a 2 horse race: Romney and Huckabee. That says a LOT.
It suggests that Romney's message is speading, seeping out of Iowa. Voters may not know point for point what his stances are, but they know that everytime they hear about him, he is being knocked because he is saying what conservatives want to hear. Conservatives gravitate to politicians who are under media seige for spouting conservative rhetoric.
This is a textbook case of how to leverage an early primary properly. People in Iowa are probably sick of hearing what he thinks, but the fact is it has been national news for 4 months that Romney is destroying the feild in Iowa. That makes people think, "Hey this guy is campaigning mostly in Iowa and the conservatives out there LOVE him over the feild. He must be the real deal."
If you can create that kind of assumption, you can leverage an early primary win into a national movement.
Romney's internet values voters suggests that IF he wins big in Iowa, he will almost certainly get the "bounce to relevancy" I have mentioned before. Internet voters are younger and read a lot on line. Their overwhelming selection of Romney seems like of the big three Republicans (Guliani,Thompson, and Romney) in their mind Romney is the hands down choice. The internet crowd seems to be a little ahead of the game in revealing new trends, I don't think politics is an exception.
This spells HUGE trouble for Fred Thompson, who looks like like a legless duck today. Thompson was the guy the corporate tax evaders' power brokers sold the religious conservative power brokers on early in the race. The plan was for Thompson to pull both audiences and TV fans and garner about 35-40% of the vote to secure the nomination, but IMO Thompson waited far too long to get into the race --- making the republican base question his resolve (they hate flip-floppers, remember?*) --- and on top of that, he failed his interview with the leaders of the Religious Reich.
* I think this is a real gem of a factoid in this election. The corporate tax evaders are the real power in the republican party, even though the Evangelicals get the credit. The facts are, the Evangelical base is the tail of the party, not the dog. They are a willing and useful tool. The Coporations have their agenda. The Corporations select candidates that support their policies and are controllable.
The Corporations wanted a candidate who would do what they wanted. They considered Romney and Huckabee long shots and too likely to raise taxes if the good of the country depended on it (ie. liberal). They liked McCain's voting record overall, but considered McCain too much of an unpredictable and uncontrollable maverick.
I think as a whole they question the electablity of Guliani --- Is Guiliani's lack of care in directing the citizenry of NYC into moving back into areas poisoned by the toxic fallout from the collapse of the twin tower --- an act that has lead to many deaths --- what amounts to a crippling scandal waiting to break and crush his candidacy? Even if he survives that, will the Mayor of New York motivate residents in Oklahoma to vote? Will religous voters even show up if the choice is Guliani vs. Clinton? Or will they put a 3rd party candidate out there who will further hurt Guiliani's chances by forcing the issue at the polls.
So they dug Fred Thomspon out of his political grave telling him the nomination was his to collect. Thompson, who's voting record reportedly almost identically mirrors McCain's, recinded his support for McCain (effectively killing McCain's front runner status and reducing McCain to a darkhorse candidate) and promptly publically mulled running. Thompson took his recruiter's words to heart and didn't bother to even announce his candidacy officially for months on end. As he hemmed and hawwed about when to accept his Presidential rubber stamp, the republican voters on the fringes of the various groups within the party looked at him and subconsciously categorized him. They knew smarter people who ran the republican Party who had warned them in 2004 about voting for a candidate who lacked consistency. There was a word for that... a "Flip-flopper".
And the people who came up with that strategy? Not the religous right --- they aren't politically savy --- The Corporate Tax Evaders.
So now, with the election looming, the Corporate Tax Evaders find themselves riding a dead horse. They have sunk a lot of money into Thompson that looks like lost money. They have killed McCain as a viable candidate. I am sure they'd love a do-over today. (If you add McCain and Thompson's numbers together you probably have McCain's numbers in a race without Thompson.)
Looking at this as a business decision, their best bet may be to find a viable candidate and cut a deal with him. They promise to usher Thompson out of the race and throw their support behind the new candidate in time for the primaries and in return they get a choice seat at the white house table.
The problem is Thompson is fueled by honeriness. If they support him with kind words he will continue to laze about and lose the election. If his supporters bail on him and try to get him out of the race, Thompson would essentially lose face. He would prove correct everyone who questioned his heart and he would piss off his power- and fame-hungry trophy wife who(IMO) appears to despirately want to be the first lady. If put into that position, his wife will insist he resist and Thompson might campaign a lot harder and smarter. A motivated abandoned Thompson might actually pull this out, which would again put the corporate power brokers on the outside looking in.
(My personal opinion is Thomspson is an old man who just wants to be married to his trophy wife, father to his kids, and an actor. The Presidency sounded like a hassel but it was something he was willing to pursue for his wife when it was going to be given to him, but --- admittedly looking from the outside --- I suspect the campaign has quickly ruined his percieved quality of life and become an issue in his marriage. I think he wants out, but the only way he can get out of this quickly and back to his comfortable life with his marriage intact is to come in 2nd or 3rd in the primaries. And that is why you have a lackluster Fred.)
It is a funny little trap for themselves the corporations have made of the republican primaries. It seems clear if Thompson doesn't win the nomination, they are going to have to pony up a LOT of money next year to get the nominee to forget their dismissiveness in the early days of the race. If they lose the primaries you might see a real splinterring of that group, with certain parts of that group throwing most of their money to the Dems --- joining the stockbrokers in trading large campaign contributions to the Clintons for the creation and protection of promised tax loopholes.
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