{"id":526,"date":"2007-03-02T10:06:44","date_gmt":"2007-03-02T16:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/03\/02\/conservatives-wont-vote-for-rudy-alert-part-xxvii\/"},"modified":"2007-03-02T10:08:21","modified_gmt":"2007-03-02T16:08:21","slug":"conservatives-wont-vote-for-rudy-alert-part-xxvii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=526","title":{"rendered":"“Conservatives Won’t Vote For Rudy” Alert, Part XXVII"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeff Kouba on the Spartanburg, SC Republican straw poll – which Rudy Giuliani won, with 158 votes.\u00a0 Duncan Hunter was in second with 152, McCain came\u00a0in third at 116 votes, with Brownback, Romney and Huckabee trailing by more distant margins.<\/p>\n

Kouba:<\/p>\n

Skipping the usual blandishments about how little these polls count, straw polls normally reward on-the-spot organization and ideological fidelity more than electability, experience, or money – witness in Minnesota two examples, Gary Bauer\u2019s 1999 victory and Newt Gingrich\u2019s 2006 win<\/font><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The catch?\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the campaign organizations in South Carolina claiming victory were, well, Spartan.<\/p>\n

As The Hotline\u2019s excellent primer for the straw poll<\/font><\/a> revealed, Giuliani\u2019s organization consisted of 2 paid staff and were already talking down expectations before the vote. Hunter had no paid staff – none – and claimed only 25 to 30 volunteers. In contrast, McCain had \u201cthe most advanced field team in the state\u201d and 11 paid SC staff members to come in third. Romney had 10 on the payroll, headlined a major dinner recently and has been airing TV ads, which bought him 3 votes more than soon-to-be conservative also ran Sam Brownback.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, Giuliani’s straw poll win – insert eternal “16 months ’til the convention” blurb here – was against type for these kinds of straw polls.<\/p>\n

The result also hints at the true depths of the current popularity of Giuliani when Hizzoner wins a straw poll in one of the more conservative counties in South Carolina with next to no campaign structure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The left – including some of them who frequent this blog – continue to insist that the conservative base will eventually shun Rudy.\u00a0 And yet Rudy keeps on winning conservative <\/em>straw polls, and\u00a0handily, including this latest one – deep in the fanny pack on the back of the Bible Belt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The kind of place that’s supposed to eat smartass New Yorkers alive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Kouba on the Spartanburg, SC Republican straw poll – which Rudy Giuliani won, with 158 votes.\u00a0 Duncan Hunter was in second with 152, McCain came\u00a0in third at 116 votes, with Brownback, Romney and Huckabee trailing by more distant margins. Kouba: Skipping the usual blandishments about how little these polls count, straw polls normally reward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}