CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Updated Feb. 28, 2009 – 6:42 p.m.
Conservative Activists Still Favor Romney
By Rachel Kapochunas, CQ Staff
If the Republican Party’s conservative wing had the power to choose presidential nominees, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be the hands-down choice.
For the third straight year, activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) chose Romney, a candidate in the 2008 primaries, as their next presidential favorite in a straw poll.
Of 1,757 registered attendees who chose to take this year’s survey, 20 percent said they would vote for Romney as president in 2012.
David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the conference, lamented that just as conservatives last year began to “realize he was one of us,” Romney dropped out of the 2008 presidential race. It was at last year’s CPAC gathering that Romney announced the suspension of his candidacay.
A relative newcomer who has been much in the news came in second: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was favored by 14 percent of the conservatives at the annual Washington gathering.
Third place was a tie between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , who was the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2008 and former presidential candidate Ron Paul . Each was preferred by 13 percent of conference goers.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich placed fifth, with 10 percent of the straw poll vote, and former Arkansas Governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee received 7 percent.
Students comprised 52 percent of survey participants, said pollster Tony Fabrizio, who conducted the straw poll.
Little weight is given to any survey this far out from the election, but the straw poll is an indicator of the current thinking in the GOP’s conservative wing.
When asked if he had a favorite candidate, Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber” in the 2008 presidential campaign, said, “No one springs to mind right now.”
“I haven’t seen anybody perform as a leader,” he said.
Vincent A. Loparo, a health care service company vice president from Ohio, attended the conference but said he skipped the straw poll because three years out is too early to pick a candidate.
He did, however, have a choice for the conservative movement’s leader: Gingrich.
Defining the movement’s next spokesman was a recurring theme at the gathering. Paul, for instance, told the crowd that conservatives have no clear leader at the moment.
“In many ways the conservative movement has struggled to find a conservative,” Paul said. “They’ve been struggling ever since Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and the revolution of 1994” when, under Gingrich, Republicans captured a majority in the House of Representatives.
In an interview, Keene identified several possibilities as the movement’s next defining figure.
Among them: Reps. Mike Pence of Indiana and Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin; Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, and Palin.
“Liberals like to talk about how there’s a weak bench. Well, Barack Obama wasn’t even on their bench four years before he was elected,” Keene said.
First posted Feb. 28, 2009 5:02 p.m.
Comments
I'm a life long conservative and for me Romney is not even on the radar. He looks too much like John Carrey in republican suit. I never believed his line about having a change of heart in regards to policies he supported as governer.
That is a WASTED vote. CPAC group is looking for one who will be willing to spend millions in order to make them viable. The GOP won't wear that Mitt, come 2012! I'll do my part to make sure of that!! OsiSpeaks[dot]com
I am glad Guilianni (a noun, a verb and 9/11) didn't place.
Interesting. The establishment seems to be behind Romney. The religious right at this point seems split between Palin and Huckabee, with Palin having strong numbers among conservative women. Jindal's poor performance didn't seem to hurt him with Republicans. Then there's the Paul people...Add to that the moderates like Crist and Huntsman (?) and far right characters like Sanford and we're in for a fun blood bath.
Surprise surprise! "Joe the (un-licenced) Plumber" has renounced his support for "Caribou Barbie" - though the same goes for McCain's declaration of neutrality as well.
How about Googling Mitt Romney's Q rating...or his unfavorable rating amongst moderate Republicans, independents, and conservative Democrats, and I don't need Nate Silver telling me that Obama will pick-up Arizona, Missouri, with the possibilities of Georgia and one of the Dakotas at least on top of everything else he won in 2008. The Republican Party is officially the Whig Party.
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