Illinois Straw Poll Results

The Illinois State Republican Party held it's own straw poll today. The event only had 1/15th of the voters that the much-publicized Iowa straw poll had, but one presumes that it is still a better measure of real primary voter strength on the ground than a telephone poll.

The results went like this....

1st Mitt Romney 40%
2nd Fred Thompson 20%
3rd Ron Paul 19%
4th Rudy Giuliani 12%
5th John McCain 4%
6th Mike Huckabee 3%
All others 1% or less

It does not take much of an IQ to do an analysis on these numbers. Mitt Romney is a national candidate who has the base to carry his Iowa win over to another state. Mike Huckabee's and Sam Brownback's Iowa numbers appear to be a result of concentrating their resources in Iowa. So far they are not parlaying their finish in the Iowa Straw poll to strong national, or even regional, appeal.

Rudy Giuliani once again does poorly in the heartlands. He and especially John McCain seem more like media creations than true dominant candidates.

Fred Thompson continues to garner interest, in spite of fears that his campaign has peaked too soon. Ron Paul pushed Thompson very hard for a second place finish in this poll. Assuming Thompson enters, those two may battle it out for the "limited government conservative" vote which makes up so much of the GOP. Giuliani is emerging as the candidate for liberal republicans, and Mitt Romney is running hard right in an effort to convince the moderate to mild right Republicans that he is their man.