2008 Presidential Primaries

[RedBean]

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Ron Paul is the greatest candidate possible for not only poker players, but also for the American people.

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Unless you're black.

[TheEngineer]

Romney Wins Conservative 'Values Voters' Straw Poll
Saturday, October 20, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303776,00.html

Two former governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, shared the limelight on Saturday, handily winning the top two spots in a straw poll of "values voters" conducted by the conservative Family Research Council in Washington.

In the straw poll Romney came in first with 1,595 votes, followed closely by Huckabee with 1,565.

Significantly, however, Huckabee won more than half of the 953 voters who voted at the conference; Romney received 99 votes among conference attendees, with the overwhelming majority of his support coming from voters online.

Ron Paul finished in third place with 865 votes, followed by former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson with 564 votes.

The straw poll, conducted online and at the....

[Legislurker]

RP has long had solid anti-abortion credentials. And he is a Grade A homophobe. Those are the two issues those people vote on. He may not back the ban gay marriage amendment, but most of the candidates don't. Maybe his anti-war stance plays with some of the people there. RP scores high in theory on God, guns, and gays.

[gamblerNC1]

At the moment, Ron Paul is the most powerful man in national politics, bar none. Can he win the Republican nomination? Of course not. Can he win the general election? No way. Can he mount a third party bid for the White House and make the Republican Party’s bid in the general election all but a waste of time? Without a doubt.

The Republican Party had best wake up to that fact and start to give him the pulpit he wants and deserves, instead of treating him like a joke. If he decides to run on third party ticket, he will attract many of the right wing crowd, even more so if Rudy gets the nomination. Paul stands for less government and is adamant in his support of pro-gun, pro-life and conservative financial responsibility. More important to us, he is totally against any restriction on the internet, including poker.

Like him, hate him as you choose, but he is in position to make demands on the Republican Party. Paul, I cannot believe, thinks he has a chance at the White House. But he does want the chance to get his message out, and if the mainstream media continues to all but ignore him, he may decide to run third party to get his revenge and make sure Americans at least get a chance to hear what he has to say.

I can think of nothing that would better bring the topic of the UIGEA into the mainstream discussion more than Paul’s independent bid for the White House. My gut feeling on this is he will run if he continues to feel slighted by his party. He has shown he has the money and grassroots support to get more than enough votes to cause some real problems. Hey, but what do I know, you die hard Republicans keep booing him because he wants to end the war and laughing at him because he has some radical ideas that don’t fit your platform and we will see.

Is the threat of a third party bid in order to bring the party into line dirty? Maybe, but no more so than attaching the UIGEA to the port security bill. I am not sure if I would vote for him, but I applaud his courage in standing on that stage, in front of what is a hostile crowd of deep-dyed red Republicans and tell them some truths they do not want to hear. He deserves respect for that, but if the Republican Party continues to deny him that, he may turn out to be as big of a headache for them as the war in Iraq.

[Moneyline]

[ QUOTE ]
At the moment, Ron Paul is the most powerful man in national politics

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Are you drunk?

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
At the moment, Ron Paul is the most powerful man in national politics, bar none.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a bit of an overstatement, given that any Republican candidate is an underdog at the present time, but Rep. Paul clearly has power to mess things up for the GOP. If Giuliani is the nominee, I could see him running as an independent or as a Libertarian. He's 72, so it's not like he can wait eight years to run again, especially if he feels he's saving conservatism by running (like Goldwater, who knew there would be brighter days for limited government conservatism ahead).

If Paul runs and it looks like Giuliani has no chance against Clinton, it's hard to imagine the FoF crowd not running someone as well, maybe even Dobson himself (I don't see them lining up behind Paul, despite his pro-life record...they like big government). Dobson is 71...he may not want to go out without making a statement to the GOP as well. There's a chance the FoF crowd would rather lose and show their power (i.e., "see, without us the GOP can't win") than lose with Giuliani and allow the small government GOPers to make that claim.

One could imagine each of the three factions of conservatism running its own candidate. Regardless, this will be a very interesting election.

[meelo]

Has anyone seen the survey put out by the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling? Evidently they surveyed each of the Presidential candidates on gambling expansion and Mike Huckabee was the only Republican to respond (with a negative stance on I-gaming, no less).

See the last two paragraphs of this article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/st...566652047.html

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone seen the survey put out by the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling? Evidently they surveyed each of the Presidential candidates on gambling expansion and Mike Huckabee was the only Republican to respond (with a negative stance on I-gaming, no less).

See the last two paragraphs of this article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/st...566652047.html

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Yes, he's a well-known anti-gaming zealot.

Maybe we should write to these candidates so they hear from us. I've sent Duncan Hunter (another big opponent of ours) a few emails.

[meelo]

I've just learned that he was the ONLY candidate to respond. NCALG/GE must be giving themselves a huge pat on the back for that one.

[TheEngineer]

https://pokerplayersalliance.org/new...le.php?DID=289

Updated for latest polling and some Ron Paul info. No other real changes, as none of the candidates have publicly changed their positions.