This year's non-binding straw poll resulted in Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) recieving the largest percentage of votes at 25 percent closely followed by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) at 23 percent.
No other Republicans garnered more than 10 percent of the vote. Former Senator and Presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA) won 8 percent followed by Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) with 7 percent, Congressman and 2012 VP candidate Paul Ryan (R-WI) at 6 percent, Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) 5 percent, Neurosurgeon Ben Carson (a CPAC favorite speaker) with 4 percent. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) received 4 percent with Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin both with 3 percent.
Sarah Palin was also a crowd pleaser drinking a Big Gulp soda in an obvious slap to New York City Dictator Mike Bloomberg and his far reaching grab to control peoples' lives in the Big Apple, all while the welfare and food stamp rolls grow expoentially under his watch. Governor Palin also made the excellent observation that background checks, referring to the Liberal's attempts to cut away at second amendment rights, should have started with Obama. We should all agree. If there was a background check on Obama before 2008, he would have never been elected, however not only was the mainstream media on their collective butts, they were sitting in Obama's camp.
While Rand Paul is my current front runner, I think he got a boost in conversative popularity when he filibustered in the Senate on the Defense Secretary Hagel confirmation vote showing that he was willing to take the sometimes lonely road to stand up for the Constitution against the Obama Administration freedom destroying, anti-constitutional power grabs - in this case the refusal of the Obama Administration and chief liar Eric Holder to state that the targeting of Americans in the U.S. would be illegal. It was very troubling that it took Senator Paul's efforts to get a definitive answer from the Democrats in power, and when he did the answer was terse: "would it be constitutional for the U.S. government to use armed drone strikes to target Americans in the U.S. ?",....Eric Holder's response: "no".
To be fair Rand Paul had filibuster support in the Senate, most noteably from Senator Rubio, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others, all who are conservatives stalwarts. It is hopeful for conservatives that most of the vote getters in this year's straw poll are real conservatives, sans Governor Christie. Albeit there are 3 years to go before we pick a candidate and by then Governor Christie will probably have a fat induced heart attack or other major health issues which will not permit him to run. And thankfully we did not see Senator McCain's name nor Jeb Bushes on the straw ballot. Note to these two - please don't throw your name into the hat in 2016.
