He bussed in 600 Kool-Aid drinkers to stack the deck in the Values Voter straw poll, which he won with 733 votes. “Values” — get it?



Rep. Ron Paul scored a decisive victory Saturday in a mock presidential election at the Values Voter Summit, trouncing fellow Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, but an organizer of the straw poll suggested ballot-stuffing may have skewed the results.

In a press conference following the announcement of the straw poll
results at the annual Washington gathering of social conservatives,
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins all but dismissed the
results as irrelevant, citing 600 people who registered Saturday morning
and, he said, "left after Ron Paul spoke."

A total of 1,983 ballots were cast. "You do the math," Perkins said.



A year ago in the same contest, Paul came in second-to-last. Speaking briefly with reporters before the straw poll results were announced, the Republican lawmaker said, "If I win, it wouldn't be as important to the media than if I lose."

Paul has a history of scoring unlooked-for straw poll
wins by packing the electorate with diehard supporters. But Perkins
said it's too early to take much away from Paul's win. "Let me just take
you back four years to this event, when we had a straw poll. Mitt Romney won that straw poll," he said. "I think people are still in the process of deciding where they want to go." Paul
got 37 percent of the vote. The rest of the ballots showed how widely
social conservatives support is splintered among the rest of the field. Two other conservative favorites, businessman Herman Cain and former Sen. Rick Santorum, took second and third place, respectively, with 23 percent for Cain and 16 percent for Santorum.

Perry and Michele Bachmann won 8 percent apiece. Mitt Romney got 4 percent of the vote and Newt Gingrich, 3 percent.

For
Perry, who is struggling to regain momentum after some disappointing
showings in debates and the polls, the results represent a
disappointment. The Texas governor is counting on voters who share his
socially conservative views to help power his candidacy into the top
tier of Republicans. He didn't get the ringing endorsement he might have
wished out of the Values Voter Summit. Instead, the gathering put Perry in the midst of a controversy
when the Dallas pastor who introduced him Friday later told reporters
that Romney's Mormon faith is a "cult" and "not Christian." Perkins said his organization did "everything to preserve the integrity of this straw poll,"
including denying campaigns from buying blocks of tickets, "which they
attempted to do this year." But Santorum on Friday seemed dubious, and
told National Journal that his success in the polls would depend "on how
many people, how many campaigns, tried to buy a bunch of tickets and
try to stack the poll, which unfortunately happens." The
victory for the longtime congressman and three-time presidential
contender over his Republican rivals in the presidential contest was all
the more surprising because Paul's principled libertarianism sometimes
puts him at odds with the views of social conservatives on issues such
as gay marriage and drug laws. But in a speech hours before the straw poll
results were announced, Paul argued that his staunch fiscal
conservatism and dogmatic views on liberty were in tune with family
values and the Bible.


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