Bill Frist Wins Early Straw Poll

This weekend during the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, a straw poll was conducted to get an early view of the more than 1,400 Republicans leaders from 37 states. Since the conference was held in Tennessee, Frist's home state, it is believed he packed it with supporters so that he could tilt the poll in his favor, and it worked. Frist came in first with 36.9 of all votes cast. Frist's people were successful in getting him the small victory, one much needed as his mainstream appeal was seriously tarnished in 2005. Here are more results:

The shocker of the evening was that Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney placed second, besting far better-known rivals Arizona Sen. John McCain and Virginia Sen. George Allen. Romney finished with 14 percent of the vote.
Third place was shared by Allen and President Bush, each of whom won 10.3 percent of the ballots cast. Bush, who of course is not eligible to run again for president, was the write-in candidate that McCain was pushing through the weekend.

John McCain asked for people to write in Bush because he said that Republicans needed to show the president support during these tough times. However it has been widely reported that he did it because he knew about Frist's plan to inflate the vote. The one major candidate who was not in attendance over the weekend was Rudy Giuliani. Rudy has successfully kept American guessing on whether or not he will run in 2008, and not showing up for the SRLC only helped confuse his supporters.
The significance of this straw poll is marginal considering we are still 2 years from any nomination. However, the conference did help people hear from the laundry list of men who appear to be the current frontrunners. By the way, the winner of the last straw poll in 1998 was a little known Governor of Texas named George W. Bush

MSNBC is doing their own virtual straw poll of GOP candidates and you can vote here.

Source MSNBC

-Brad