Saturday, October 22, 2011

Swing State Straw Poll results and new 3BP poll

Today the Franklin County Republican Party held the first ever straw poll of Republican presidential candidates. The event was a success, with over 400 people from all over Ohio attending and casting a ballot.

Kudos go to Rick Santorum, who was the only candidate to directly address the audience live via Skype. Herman Cain pre-recorded an address specifically to the Ohio crowd. A local candidate for Columbus city council spoke in place of Ron Paul. For the other candidates, a brief history was read live and one of their videos was played.




As is par for the course for straw polls, supporters of Ron Paul were out in full force. Their organization for swarming these types of events is legendary, and they certainly outnumbered everybody else. Sadly, at times many of them were disrespectful to the candidates' presentations and to the other attendees. Every one of them had yard signs being handed out by the campaign, and they incessantly held them up over their heads, blocking the view of the stage and video screen for everyone else. At one point, I politely let the ones in front of us know that we couldn't see. A couple put their signs down, yet another informed us that if we wanted to see, we should move. Um...okay. At other times, they yelled comments and even classy statements like "Bull****!" during the presentations for the other candidates. They were so rowdy, that many other attendees felt that they ruined the event. Finally, the speaker paused and reminded everyone, that as conservatives, we believe in personal responsibility, and that that included being respectful to the other candidates. Everyone not holding a Paul sign applauded and that seemed to do the trick.


Aside from that, however, the Franklin County GOP, with help from the OSU College Republicans, put on a great event. We also heard speakers regarding Issue 2 and Issue 3 (vote YES on both!), and also some information about local candidates being supported in Franklin County. Chairman Doug Preisse even mentioned Third Base Politics in his opening remarks, which we were grateful for, of course. It was a great start to what hopefully becomes a much bigger event in the future.

So, onto the results! Ron Paul was the clear winner.
Ron Paul 53.50%
Herman Cain 25.47%
Mitt Romney 8.88%
Newt Gingrich 5.37%
Rick Perry 2.80%
Jon Huntsman 2.10%
Rick Santorum .93%
Michele Bachmann .47%
Write-In .47% (1 for Mitch Daniels, 1 for Marco Rubio)
Speaking of polls, lets do another 3BP straw poll. Its been a couple of months since we last did one, and while the field hasn't changed, we've had a few debates since then. We'll keep the poll open through Sunday night, October 30.




12 comments:

  1. sorry....you are incorrect....people BUY or MAKE Ron Paul signs...they do not give them for free. The campaign does not need to give them away.

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  2. How is that relevant? Most of the signs were clearly obtained from the Paul table at the event, whether they were free or not.

    The behavior of the Paul crowd was very bad. I don't think Congressman Paul would approve of their horrible manners at this event.

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  3. As I was present, I feel obliged to comment. There were people there who were very rude, about 5 of them, but the rest of the Ron Paul followers were not applauding their behavior. There were over 200 of us. Please don't let 5 idiots speak for a positive movement...

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  4. Herman Cain gets 2 weeks of Headline Coverage for a 37% win in Florida. Ron Paul wins Louisiana, California and Ohio and gets completely ignored. Perhaps the two are connected?

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  5. I was at the event and as a Ron Paul fan, I was also disappointed at the way we came off. There were definitely some rude people in the crowd, and they are NOT the majority of Ron's supporters. I believe that every candidate deserves a right to be heard, and I agree with a lot of what they say.

    I'd also like to point out that the reason this is not getting much media coverage is that despite their advertising, this was not a "swing state" straw poll. This was a clever way to draw people from around the state to donate money to the local Franklin county campaign. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't advertise that little fact on their website.

    Had this been a state sanctioned event, I am sure all of the candidates would have made an effort to have a pre-recorded speech if not do a skype or in person appearance. Ohio is a huge deal, the candidates know it. But I think they were well informed by their media teams that this was a local event, not a state sponsored one.

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  6. I was at this event as well, and while some attendees were very briefly (and rather humorously) vocal in response to a statement by a candidate or two, all were very respectful. This article vastly overstates the very few outbursts, most likely because they were made by supporters of Ron Paul. And I would put it to you that, if other attendees felt Dr. Paul's supporters ruined the event, it's because they very obviously outshone the candidate that they were there to promote.

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  7. No, it doesn't overstate the outbursts, it actually understates them.

    Rick Santorum was speaking to the crowd live, and he kept getting interrupted by the Paul crowd by boos, and then they chanted "Ron Paul Ron Paul" while he was trying to speak. Was that respectful?

    Was yelling "bulls***!" and booing and again starting "Ron Paul" chants while the MC read the bios of other candidates respectful?

    Was constantly blocking everyone else's view of the stage and screen with signs respectful?

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  8. You are upset that Paul fans disrespected Santorum while he was speaking?! How about all the times Santorum disrespected other candidates when they were trying to speak at debates? More than one time I've heard Santerry (one in the same) interrupt another candidate at a debate. Why should the audience show him more respect than he shows fellow candidates? The audience isn't made of professionals, but as a politician, Santorum should be a professional and he is not. Lead by example.

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  9. Oh, and here is my evidence. This is Santorum trying to interrupt Paul after Paul politely listened to his point.

    http://youtu.be/Yi12aVa3psc

    So if Paul fans want to silence Santorum at a debate, then I say go for it. Santorum doesn't deserve to be heard based on his past debate actions.

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  10. Shorter anonymous Paulbot: its OK to be rude to everyone else attending the event, because Ron Paul was interrupted in a debate.

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  11. Again, Bytor, Santorum is rude to others at a debate so why should people not be rude to him? He can give it but he can't take it?

    How about you say the behavior of Santorum has been very bad? Or is it ok so long as something is anti-Paul?

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