Interesting. Funny how Allen won this straw poll just last year and is now a pariah.
Romney favored among conservatives in straw pollPOSTED: 10:10 p.m. EST, March 3, 2007
Story Highlights• Former Massachusetts governor got 21 percent of the 1,705 votes
• Vote taken at three-day Conservative Political Action Conference
• Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani came in second
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mitt Romney won the most support for the Republican presidential nomination in a Saturday straw poll of GOP activists attending an annual conference.
Despite his record of inconsistency on some social issues, the former Massachusetts governor got 21 percent of the 1,705 votes cast by paid registrants to the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference.
They were asked who their first choice would be for the Republican nomination. (Watch GOP hopefuls make their pitches )
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose moderate stances on social issues irks the party's right wing, was second with 17 percent. (Watch Giuliani speak at CPAC )
Both were among the more than half-dozen White House hopefuls who spoke at the conference.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who rounds out the top tier of serious GOP contenders, skipped the event -- and was punished for it. He got only 12 percent of the vote.
Ahead of him were Romney, Giuliani and two others. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a favorite of religious conservatives, got 15 percent, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who says he won't decide whether to run until the fall, got 14 percent.
Others got 5 percent or less.
A year ago, then-Virginia Sen. George Allen received 22 percent of the vote. His presidential chances evaporated last year as he struggled to win -- and eventually lost -- his Senate re-election race.
In that CPAC poll last year, McCain had 20 percent, Giuliani had 12 percent, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had 10 percent, and Gingrich had 5 percent.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/03/conservatives.ap/index.html
