Huckabee Wins FRC Straw Poll in a Landslide

This might not be what all of the media is reporting, but it is the truth. The onsite polling from the people that were actually there at the Value Voters Summit showed that Huckabee won the Straw Poll with 51% of the vote. In second place was Romney with only 10% of the vote. Huckabee won the onsite vote by a 5 to 1 margin and yet the media is focusing on Romney winning the straw poll. WE people actually hear Gov. Huckabee speak it is not even a close contest they become Huckabee supporters. Those people have spoken Huckabee is the Clear choice for value voters.

FRC Straw Poll
By Mike Allen
October 20, 2007

A tale of two straw polls
It could be an episode of Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story.” Mitt Romney was announced from the podium Saturday afternoon as the winner of the Family Research Council’s “Values Voter Straw Poll,” narrowly edging Mike Huckabee.

But it turns out that the 5,775-vote total included thousands of people who had voted online, and could have become eligible by paying as little as $1 to join FRC Action, the legislative action arm of Family Research Council.

Although the audience at the Washington Hilton was not told, the crowd favorite among the 952 attendees who voted in person turned out to be Huckabee by a mile. He got 51 percent of the in-person votes, compared to just 10 percent for Mitt Romney.

This led one rival to suggest the headline, “Romney Win$ Straw Poll.”

The in-person figures were provided later at a news conference, and online at FRCAction.org.

The two groups agreed on one thing: Hillary Clinton was voted “least acceptable” candidate both overall (4,141 votes, or 72 percent) and in on-site voting (733 votes, or 77 percent). In total voting, Giuliani was the runner-up as least-acceptable, ahead of all the Democrats on the ballot. On-site, that honor went to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

Asked about the disparity in the two totals, FRC President Tony Perkins said his group had put out all the figures, and news organizations were free to report and interpret it as they wished, including “as two distinct polls.” He said FRC has stuck to the rules of the straw poll as it had been described from the beginning, and could not stop candidates from influencing the results.

Perkins said: “There’s going to be some natural disparity because when people hear someone, they’re going to be motivated. There’s no question in my mind, Governor Huckabee gave the best speech at this event. I mean, that was a clear motivational factor.”

Here are the total results:

Mitt Romney – 1,595 votes -- 27.62%
Mike Huckabee – 1,565 votes -- 27.15%
Ron Paul -- 865 votes -- 14.98%
Fred Thompson -- 564 votes -- 9.77%
Undecided -- 329 votes -- 5.70%
Sam Brownback – 297 votes -- 5.14%
Duncan Hunter -- 140 votes -- 2.42%
Tom Tancredo -- 133 votes -- 2.30%
Rudy Giuliani -- 107 votes 1.85%
John McCain -- 81 votes -- 1.40%

And here are the on-site results:

Mike Huckabee -- 488 votes -- 51.26%
Mitt Romney -- 99 votes -- 10.40%
Fred Thompson -- 77 votes -- 8.09%
Tom Tancredo -- 65 votes -- 6.83%%
Rudy Giuliani -- 60 votes -- 6.30%
Duncan Hunter -- 54 votes -- 5.67%
John McCain -- 30 votes -- 3.15%
Sam Brownback -- 26 votes -- 2.73%
Ron Paul -- 25 votes -- 2.63%
Undecided -- 11 votes -- 1.16%