Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger
Backers of several GOP presidential hopefuls other than Ron Paul said only Paul’s campaign “bused in” supporters for the informal straw poll that he won Saturday night at the Republican Party of Virginia’s annual Advance.
“We didn’t really put any effort into this,” said Randy Marcus, top staffer to Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who backs Mitt Romney. “Ron Paul is busing people in.”
Paul, a Texas congressman, captured 38 percent of the votes — 182 of 479 ballots cast — while former Tennessee Sen. Thompson received 112 votes. Former Sen. George Allen spoke for Thompson, while Janet Huckabee, wife of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, spoke for her husband, who finished third in the straw poll with 51 votes, or 10 percent.
Romney finished a rather distant fourth with 45 votes while Rudy Giuliani received 43, John McCain won 23, Duncan Hunter got 19 and four ballots were cast for Tom Tancredo.
Buses or not, it was clear that sign-carrying and boisterous Paul supporters took the straw poll seriously while other candidates did not do much to get their supporters to Arlington with $35 each to cast an informal ballot.
Shaun Kenney, who left his job Saturday as spokesman for the state GOP to join a Catholic right-to-life group in Stafford County, said Paul has won more than 20 straight straw polls around the country in his efforts to show some real grassroots organizing strength and successful use of the Internet as a campaign tool.
Bay Buchanan made the trip to Virginia to speak for Tancredo, who needed no buses for the four supporters who cast ballots for him.
Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger
Democrats are asking which candidate would be the strongest for the GOP to nominate in ‘08: Chris Saxman, Jim Gilmore or Bob Marshall.
The answer from former Charlottesville Democratic Party Chairman Lloyd Snook, a prolific blogger, is Saxman.
Snook blogged about his “strongest Republican” candidate selection this afternoon at: http://www.democraticcentral.com and mused: “The consensus that I have heard from Democratic Party insiders is that the candidate that they would least like to run against is Chris Saxman—he is smarter than the other two, and he is at least a nice guy. Jim Gilmore is seen as VERY old news, and too strident to compete effectively against Mark Warner. Bob Marshall is newer news and is even more strident than Gilmore, but at least he can be strident with a smile on his face, unlike Gilmore’s permanently affixed snarl.
“The interesting thing is that the Christian Right, which had thought Gilmore was one of them, is quite disturbed by his statements in Presidential debates that he favors abortion rights in the first trimester. That is actually not wildly different from anything he had said on a Virginia stage in earlier years, but in the national debates he was required to be clear. And the Christian Right is not happy about that.”
Snook knows that Republicans don’t let Democrats or independents vote in their primaries or conventions, much less decide which candidate the GOP will nominate, and certainly expects Democrat Mark Warner to face Gilmore. The run-up to Gilmore’s convention could be interesting if abortion becomes one of the litmus-test issues the candidates talk about.
Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger
Former Sen. and Gov. George Allen, R-Fairfax County, went to Florida for the YouTube presidential debate and later told CNN that his presidential candidate, Fred Thompson, “stood far above all of ‘em” when it came to stands on issues that Republicans care about, such as illegal immigration.
“The point is Fred is a consistent conservative,” Allen told CNN’s Wolf Blizter in a CNN video clip that Allen posted Friday afternoon on his own blog: http://www.georgeallen.com/2007/11/30/george-allen-internet-is-good-for-democracy-cnn-political-ticker/.
“He’s proud of his record,” Allen told Blitzer in a nearly 7-minute interview in which he plugged away for Thompson. “Others may have to bob and weave and dodge and try to distort their past records, or run away from their records ... Fred Thompson is the man you can trust.”
When Blitzer asked Allen is he will run again in Virginia, the co-chairman of Thompson’s campaign hardly said no.
“Susan and I haven’t decided whether we’ll run again or not,” Allen replied, then noted they are getting plenty of encouragement. Blitzer closed by noting: “Doesn’t sound like a no to me.”
Allen made sure that the CNN piece was posted on his blog, where some Republicans might be more likely to find it than on CNN.
