If those who know him best will not vote for him, why should other Americans?

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter's long-shot bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination got a boost over the weekend when he emerged on top in a straw poll of Republican precinct committeemen in Arizona's most-populated county.

Hunter, R-El Cajon, got 96 votes among the 458 ballots in the non-binding poll of Maricopa County party officials asked to list their first choice for president.
Hunter easily beat Arizona's own U.S. Sen. John McCain, considered a front-runner in the GOP presidential race, who drew a comparatively paltry 50 votes. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in second in Saturday's poll with 82 first-place votes.

The total for Hunter is interesting, but I don’t believe it is significant in the long term. Hunter is not well-known nationally, and therefore is not likely to duplicate his feat elsewhere in the country. This even was shown in the straw poll when he placed seventh overall among the candidates when the same group was asked to rank who they considered “acceptable”, not just their first choice.

Here are the full results of the straw poll.

458 Ballots cast

As you can see, McCain is unacceptable to 65% of those voting! On the other hand, Romney is the only declared candidate among the top three finishers in the poll of acceptable candidates -- and for reasons I've pointed out before, Gingrich really is not a viable candidate for the general election. Add to that the reality that the Secretary of State has repeatedly indicated a lack of interest in running for the top job, and I believe this shows Gov. Mitt Romney to be the real front-runner among these party activists.

Posted by: Greg at 12:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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