Inside Politics Daily
Support for Obama and Democrats Slips Among 18-to-29 Year Olds.
CPAC Gets Younger, Hipper, More High Tech.

Conservative Favorites for 2012:
Texas Rep. Ron Paul was the clear winner of a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Saturday, garnering 31 percent of the vote. Click through to see the next favorites.

Patricia Murphy, Columnist

Ron Paul Wins CPAC Straw Poll, Sarah Palin is Third With 7 Percent.
POSTED: 02/20/10

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) ran away with the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, with 31 percent of the vote. Paul’s libertarian conservative message has made him a hero to small-government Republicans for years, but this is the first CPAC straw poll he has ever won.

Paul’s victory came as a surprise to supporters of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who has won the straw poll at this event for the last four years. Romney was second this year, with 22 percent.

Another surprise came with Sarah Palin’s third-place finish, with 7 percent of the vote. Palin is a favorite of the conservative base, but was one of the few Republicans included in the straw poll ballot who did not attend or speak to the conference.

CPAC’s straw poll is an unscientific, voluntary poll, but it has served as a barometer of support for possible Republican presidential candidates among their all-important conservative base.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul was the clear winner of a straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Saturday, garnering 31 percent of the vote. Click through to see the next favorites.
 http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/…

 http://www.aolcdn.com/ke/media_gallery/v…

- – - -
Here are the full results:

Rep. Ron Paul- 31 percent

Mitt Romney- 22 percent

Sarah Palin- 7 percent.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty – 6 percent

Rep. Mike Pence- 5 percent

Mike Huckabee- 4 percent

Newt Gingrich- 4 percent

Gov. Mitch Daniels- 2 percent

Rick Santorum- 2 percent

Sen. John Thune- 2 percent

Gov. Haley Barbour- 1 percent.

———

The highest rated comments that represent best that meeting were:

from: Carlene’s Visit
11:23PM Feb 20th 2010
OBAMA IS NEITHER A DEMOCRAT OR A REPUBLICAN AND HE IS NOT EVEN A LIBERAL -
HE IS A PROGRESSIVE SOCIALIST LEADER WHO HAS DONE NOTHING TO HELP AMERICA
BUT PUT US FURTHER IN DEBT.

RATE THIS COMMENT: (150)

—

from: fmtflf
11:53PM Feb 20th 2010

I like Ron Paul…if you watch the debates from the last election, everything he said was going to happen in the financial markets happened! he tried to get people to listen and fix this and nobody would. he is the only politician that is screaming for smaller govt and plans to remove the irs and income tax, as his reduction in govt would allow for this. we all can agree that govt spending is out of control and he’s got a plan to fix that. I also like that he supports bringing our military home from all over the world. We don’t need to be in Japan and Germany…plus we can’t afford to keep them there. fb

RATE THIS COMMENT: (166)

——————–

Matt Lewis, Contributor Politics Daily.
CPAC Gets Younger, Hipper, More High Tech.
POSTED: 02/21/10
Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and Liz (and Dick) Cheney gave big speeches on the opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — and Glenn Beck closed it to a rousing ovation, but just as interesting as the speakers on stage was the ages of the people sitting in the seats, congregated around the bars and cafes, and holding court in the lobby of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

I speak from experience. My first CPAC conference was eleven years ago. Since then, I’ve attended seven or eight of the annual affairs. The most obvious difference this year is that there are more young people in attendance.
CPAC director Lisa De Pasqual told me: “Our pre-registration numbers were 20 percent above last year’s. We’re expecting over 10,000 attendees and more than half of them are college students. I think it really speaks to the excitement and energy in the conservative movement right now.”
One seasoned CPAC veteran, who asked not be named, bluntly told me, “I’ve been coming to these for years. This used to be a convention of blue hairs; now it has youthful energy.” If you’re a conservative — as I am — it was nice to see fresh young faces, who attend at a greatly reduced price. “Blue dog” Democrats are one thing, blue-haired Republicans are quite another.
Liberal blogger Bill Scher, who has gone to previous CPAC’s, speculated to me that the increase in young attendees is a result of “the James O’Keefe Effect” — a referece to someone their own age who made a splash. Scher’s theory is that young conservatives now have a contemporary example of a person in their age bracket who made a difference, and got lots of attention in the process.
For young conservatives, who exist in a sea of skepticism, if not downright hostility, on the typical college campus, CPAC offers a safe haven where they can network with other like-minded students. A student named Kelly Schumacher, who attends college in Milwaukee, told me, “It’s nice to have a conversation with someone who isn’t arguing with you.”
Added Chelsea Lapp, a high school student attending CPAC with 18 of her classmates at Westfield Academy near Buffalo, New York: “Everybody seems pretty pumped up about it.”
Jason Mattera, a young conservative who works for Young America’s Foundation, was so pumped that he gave a rousing, if politically incorrect, speech at CPAC — and found himself singled out for criticism in the New York Times for his trouble. That might mortify a typical liberal college student. Here, it’s a badge of honor.
Conference organizers did more than just offer to reduce the entry fees for students. For the past few years, bloggers had been relegated to the nether reaches of an exhibition hall, requiring them to dash upstairs to wait in line for the keynote speakers, and then scurry back to their warrens to write up something about the speech — before setting out in search off a stray WiFi connection. This year, as New Media consultant Justin Hart told me, “bloggers have the best seats in the house. WiFi was up … and the blogger row table has gone from seating 25 to seating about 100.”
“Our new set-up for Bloggers Lounge is packed thanks to Erick Erickson and Redstate.com,” explained De Pasqual, referring to relatively new stars of the conservative blogosphere. “We’ve also integrated a lot of panels and speakers who can educate attendees about modern media success stories and how they can apply them to their efforts.”
Aside from bloggers getting a huge upgrade, and aside from seeing more young people than ever, it was also interesting to note who was not seen. There are always gadflies who show up at these things — you see them year in and year out — but this year, they were noticeably in short supply. I had assumed that the Tea Party movement would mean an influx of unkempt grassroots activists at CPAC, but if they were here, they brought their khaki pants with them.