New Orleans — Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) won the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll with 24% of the vote. It was an impressive display of organizational ability for the 2008 presidential candidate, especially considering he didn’t even attend the event.<\/p>\n
Romney is widely considered to be preparing for a 2012 run and was still highly visible at the conference; a group called ‘Evangelicals for Mitt’ put up placards in the hallway outside the ballroom, gave out piggy banks that read, “Elect a president who won’t break the bank – Romney 2012” and took out a full page ad in the conference brochure.<\/p>\n
Texas congressman and 2008 presidential campaign phenom Ron Paul (R) came in second place, losing out by one vote.<\/p>\n
Paul also dropped some money for his votes. The tickets to the conference cost $150, but the Ron Paul website was selling them for $30. So, in theory, Paul paid $120 a piece for a good portion of his votes.<\/p>\n
Former Alaska Governor, 2008 Vice Presidential nominee and megastar Sarah Palin (R) came in third, garnering 18% of the vote after delivering a speech on Friday heavy on policy. Palin has been playing it coy, saying she is not yet either in or out of the 2012 presidential race. She is also a Fox News contributor.<\/p>\n
Newt Gingrich (R) also had 18% of the vote but lost out to Palin by nine votes. Gingrich also gave a speech on Friday and the crowd was very receptive.<\/p>\n
The former speaker of the house has been mulling a run at the White House since 1994, when he led the first Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n
Wilson Research Strategies conducted the polling. Here are the numbers in detail:<\/p>\n
Methodology: Only paid, credentialed attendees to the 2010 Southern Republican Leadership Conference were permitted to cast a ballot in the straw poll.<\/p>\n
Initial Choice (If the primary election for president were held today, for whom would you vote?)<\/p>\n
Mitt Romney 24% (439)<\/p>\n
Ron Paul 24% (438)<\/p>\n
Newt Gingrich 18% (321)<\/p>\n
Sarah Palin 18% (330)<\/p>\n
Mike Huckabee 4% (80)<\/p>\n
Tim Pawlenty 3% (54)<\/p>\n
Mike Pence 3% (58)<\/p>\n
Rick Santorum 2% (41)<\/p>\n
Gary Johnson 1% (3)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Orleans — Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) won the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll with 24% of the vote. It was an impressive display of organizational ability for the 2008 presidential candidate, especially considering he didn’t even attend the event. Romney is widely considered to be preparing for a 2012 run and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4535,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4535"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}