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The Spectacle Blog
Whenever a candidate wins a straw poll of any significance, supporters of the losing candidates immediately cry foul: “That candidate bused his supporters in! He paid for their tickets! Isn’t that like buying votes?” We heard this when Mitt Romney won three CPAC straw polls in a row and also after Ron Paul won the last two.
But that’s exactly the point of a straw poll, which isn’t a scientific survey. A campaign organization’s ability to identify supporters and get them to the poll, plus the supporters’ willingness to do all this on their own, are the exact things a live straw poll measures. That’s a big part of what wins real elections: your supporters’ motivation combined with your campaign’s ability to figure out who your supporters are and make sure they turn out to vote.
Now, you can’t extrapolate too much from straw polls because of scale: you can win even some of the bigger straw polls by bringing in 1,000 supporters but you can’t win the Iowa caucuses that way. The more people vote, the less intensity can make up for differences in popular support. Ron Paul also has a comparative advantage at CPAC in that his support skews younger, so more of his backers can be brought in cost-effectively at the student rate.
You can, however, extrapolate this: most of the other potential candidates not named Paul or Romney, even popular ones who have raised decent amounts of money, don’t yet have the organizations or self-organizing grassroots to compete. You could say that some of the campaigns have simply decided against spending their resources this way — I have no doubt that if Sarah Palin descended unto CPAC, she would do very well — but I don’t buy that for most of the candidates. The buzz from a strong showing even in the Paul-won straw polls is decent enough, and relatively cheap enough to get, that most of the campaigns would try to compete if they thought they could get a good enough result. So the straw polls don’t tell you a whole lot, but neither do they tell you nothing.
UPDATE: I suppose this is as good a time as any to promote our own straw poll, which no campaign can bus their supporters to.
View all comments (6) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/02/14/on-straw-polls
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louis tully| 2.14.11 @ 1:24PM
I can't get the linky to work on your Straw Poll. How bout you put the tally up in your blog posts every so often.
appreciate it...
Derek Leaberry| 2.14.11 @ 1:43PM
The problem with a straw poll at a conference like CPAC is that the universe at CPAC is narrow and dominated by young men who are unmarried and childless and don't have the responsibility of making mortgage payments. Most are still in school or in their first jobs post-college. Most are closer to being children themselves than they are to being responsible adults. They are living the end of a dream; reality will hit soon and will change their attitudes. The more libertarian candidates did the best in the straw poll yet libertarianism is a fantasyland that not only rejects Western Civilization and Christianity but rejects the world as it truly is.
Clint| 2.14.11 @ 2:00PM
Ronald Reagan:
" If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are travelling the same path."
Greta| 2.14.11 @ 2:18PM
As i understand it, most who attended did not vote in the straw poll, less than 40%. I also understand that many came with expenses picked up by one of the candidates, mainly Ron Paul and Mitt Romney with the idea being if expenses were paid, you would expect to vote for them. If true, this should be pointed out. Carl Rove said this on Fox News interview where he had some numbers in the 30-40% range voting. Most there have not figured out who they will be supporting this early. I think this is true of a lot of conservatives.
Pete2| 2.14.11 @ 2:34PM
I am a cynical conservative. That means I view all of this as a bunch of malarky and most of these candidates are so out of touch with mainstrean values and conservatism in general as to be a farce. Derek Leaberry pretty sums up these people. BTW, I am 62 years old and A Vietnam Era vet. I think I have seen a few things in my life which quantifies my cynicism, especially on the Right.
Clint| 2.14.11 @ 3:01PM
Politico Exit Poll at The Massive Tea Party Tax Day Protest on The Washington Mall: 43% said Sarah Palin was their favorite, 42% said Dr.Ron Paul was their favorite.