Romney Wins Conservatives’ Straw Poll, After Dropping Out of Race
WASHINGTON — Talk about cold comfort.
Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Thursday, won a straw poll of conservative activists on Saturday, edging out likely nominee John McCain.
Ballots for the straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference were collected Thursday morning through Friday afternoon. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, quit the race in a midday speech to the conference on Thursday.
In the straw poll vote, Romney got 35 percent and McCain 34 percent. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas tied with 12 percent.
Romney won the straw poll at the conference last year.
On another question, two-thirds said they would vote for McCain if he’s the eventual nominee, two in 10 said they would vote for someone else and about one in 10 said they would not vote.
How can Huckabee say that he didn’t know anything about Mormons when he was a Keynote speaker at the Baptist convention in Salt Lake City when they came up to “save” the Mormons?
I think it is horrible that many of his supporters are so spiteful and distasteful. pastorsforhuckabee.com was nothing except anti-Mormon (and still is for the most part - except they are rallying behind the minister under investigation from the IRS now) saying that a vote for Romney was a vote for Satan etc…
I was for Huckabee over Romney (I am LDS) in the beginning, but when he started attacking my faith (yes with the comment about Jesus and the devil being brothers- we are all brothers and sisters under God) it was an attack against what I hold dear to my heart.
He said, knowing full well, what that comment meant and how it would be perceived, and that he was saying it out of context. I would expect more from a presidential candidate.
Too bad… I really liked him. I still congratulate him on his carreer but this was too much. I forgive him, would be happy to meet him, but I will not vote for him ever, nor McCain if he is on the ballot.
McCain can choose who he likes and will most likely get my vote, but not if Huckabee is on the ticket.
I feel that Romney was a victim of prejudice against Mormon by so called “evangelical” voters who opted to vote for Huckabee, who campaigned against him unnecessarily despite the fact that Romney truly represented conservative values. Huckabee just did not want to see Romney’s victory. Also Romeny was betrayed by so called politicians like FL governor Crist, CA governor Arnold, and Rudy who should have supported him if they were really serious about the future of this nation. Instead, they had calculated their future share by lining up behind McCain.
My only hope now is that McCain will choose wisely a VP candidate, NO ONE but Huckabee.
My respect and admiration for Romney increased when he gracefully exited the race for the sake of whole purpose, a victory of Republican Party. I think that he is a true Christian by deeds.
Huckabee has lots to learn from Romney!