Huckleberry Wins "Values Voter" Straw Poll. Poor Caribou Barbie Comes In Fourth!

Mike Huckabee Wins Values Voter Straw Poll
By David Weigel 9/19/09 3:26 PM

In a telling, but non-scientific, survey of the Republican Party’s social conservative base, former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) won the 2009 Values Voter straw poll with a 28 percent plurality of the vote. Five-hundred and ninety-seven people voted.

In October 2007, former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) won the first straw poll held by this young event, a controversial result skewed by online voting by people who didn’t attend the conference. (There was no such online voting this year.) Mike Huckabee’s strong showing among voters who attended the conference foreshadowed his remarkable victory in the Iowa caucuses three months later.

Huckabee led eight other potential Republican candidates: Romney placed second with 12.4 percent, while Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) polled 12.23 percent, Sarah Palin polled 12.06 percent, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) polled 11.89 percent. People included in the poll who didn’t the top five: Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum.

Only Pence, Huckabee, Pawlenty and Romney spoke to the conference before the vote, while Rick Santorum was scheduled to give a short invocation for Phyllis Schlafly at tonight’s banquet.

http://washingtonindependent.com/60133/mike-huckabee-wins-values-voter-straw-poll

other than devotion to herself and the almighty dollar. Perhaps even the "values voters" are starting to recognize that.

I mean, tough call and all based on competition, but she surely won that hands down. Right? :wtf:

I'm not a pollster, but that does not seem to be a good number...From Your Base!

time? Just like this time? I think so.

His second place was very close to Pawlenty, Pence and Palin despite Romney's significant efforts at pre-campaigning, which he has been doing since he conceded to McCain.

And let's be honest, Huckabee was absolutely right. Romney sails whichever the wind blows and has ever since he got into politics. Chris Matthews said not long ago there was some issue that Romney has actually bounced back and forth on FIVE times. Romney says he's just flexible to new information as he receives it. Yeah, right.

I hate Huckabee's positions on most issues, but I have to give him props for being fair when he has liberals on his show. I've heard several say he gives them a fair shake. An example: he said not long ago to somebody that "I hadn' thought of it that way. Interesting. You presented your position very well." Then again, he's always the prankster/jokester type and those type politicians ALWAYS get in trouble for something a couple of times a year.

But as president of the United States? No thank you. If he were in a close race with Palin in the primaries, I'm so fearful of Palin that I'd be inclined to help Huckabee behind the scenes, but that's the only way.

This is the group we are supposed to be so bi-partisan with.

They can't even name their events without trying to anyone who is not them. They are the values voters so anyone who is not them don't have values? I wonder why their numbers keep falling. Not.

The current Republican Party is so dominated by right-wing crazies who genuinely believe that they lost in 2008 because McCain was too liberal. So, I am quite certain that whoever the nominee will be in 2001, it will be a very polarizing figure who is stridently right-wing on almost all issues. The base of the current Republican party is just so rabidly convinced that unless they save American from the Communists, Muslims, Nazis and anti-Christ - America is utterly doomed - They simply won't settle for anyone who doesn't at least pretend to share the Glen Beck world view.

Right-wing fundamentalist are now by far the most important group within the GOP to satisfy.

Sarah Palin is washed up, from what I surmise. She has simply upset too many people within the world of GOP operatives. Even most Republicans have recognized that she is self-serving, embarrassingly ignorant and just plain nuts.

I doubt that Mitt Romney will be the nominee. He is a Mormon which is anathema to most fundamentalist Protestants. His personality comes off as phony. Many of the party faithful are highly suspicious of the relative social liberalism he accepted when he was Governor or Massachusetts.

I could be wrong, but I personally think Mike Huckabee will probably be the 2012 Republican nominee. He comes off as amiable and appears at least ostensibly as being fairly quick witted. He would satisfy the fundamentalist and social conservative base.

My only fear is that there is always the possibility of a historic accident, such as major problems with the economy or - God Forbid - a terrorist attack that could turn a nonviable right-wing nut into a viable candidate who could win. It is unlikely, but not impossible.

But I agree with your conclusion.

In 1996 Phil Gramm cleaned up in the straw polls like a champ and got nowhere in the primaries. They are just laughably unindicative of much more than who works the given straw poll hardest. Groups putting on events run straw polls to draw publicity, top pols, a crowd, and money; candidates not the front runner work them to try and create the appearance of momentum--but alas, the momentum is almost always confined to the straw poll.

:rofl: the Mafia has values too ... I guess it depends on what the definition of "values" is. :yoiks:

His disgusting comment on Kennedy's death was a rare public slip.

Nevertheless, I also think Huckabee will be the candidate. It will be hard to pin his own agenda on him, because it doesn't match his nice guy persona. And the fundies want revenge for 2008 and 1996.

The big question is, how would he do in a debate with Obama? Certainly on foreign policy, Obama will have the advantage. I would think things will be turning around by 2012 and Obama will have a record of improvements to point to, so Obama should be hard to beat. Obama can debate policy. Huckabee would have to skate by on affability.

Would the country vote for a preacher type... that is a different question. If people keep leaving the church they might not want a preacher as president.

He'll have to quit his show once he announces, so that will have to be timed just right. Too soon, he loses his megaphone. Too late, somebody else comes in. But consider this: he is in a position to hype his announcement for maximum effect on his show on FOX News.

Who, back in 1997, thought that George Bush would be the nominee in 2000?

What, couldn't they get Palin to do this for her fellow "glass ceiling shatterer!"?

I used to try and think of these people as humans, but with such bizarre hatred of anything outside of a white man's world - they remind me what I despise about humanity. Go f**k some dogs Tricky Rick!

Too hard core religious conservative. I think Mittens would actually have a better chance.

would appear to me to be more favorable toward Huckabee.

2012 is a year in which the hardcore base of the party will almost certainly get its way - I don't think they will accept anything else except a candidate of their choosing.

As far as they are concerned, they already tried accommodation and compromise in 2008 by accepting a liberal (according to their worldview) like John McCain - with the hope that his chances would be better than a firebrand right-winger.

The fundamentalist-Christian element now holds more sway then ever. As far as they are concerned, its high time they ran a "real Christian" who truly represents their values and will guide the nation back to God. After all, thirty years after fundamentalist first emerged as a major force in the GOP, abortion is still legal, prayer has not been returned to public schools and "the homosexual agenda" has greatly advanced. This is not what they expected when they rallied behind Ronald Reagan in 1980. From a fundamentalist viewpoint, only a real "man of God" can save the nation. Previously fundamentalist were an important constituency of the Republican Party. Now they dominate. A Mormon from liberal Massachusetts with a phony smile and with what they see as a liberal record as Governor - simply is not good enough, not this time.

One of the essential elements of the modern American conservative is for their leaders to appear like "real people" - you know like the kind who go to tea-bagger rallies. Mitt Romney simply comes off as an elitist and phony.

Huckabee's strong points are that ostensibly he appears like a real nice guy, an ordinary guy and on the surface appears quick witted.

I don't think Huckabee would have a very good chance of winning a general election. In a sane and rational world, his nomination - if it were to happen - should mean a massive Democratic landslide. But, one can never be certain. Terrible political accidents have been known to happen from time to time.

I'm sure he will get 28% of the national voters who like con artists. I'm not impressed.

And she won't, unfortunately.

At this point, I think it will be some combo of Mitt and Huck (of course it's too early to tell).