Ron Paul wins in Maryland!

Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Ron Paul wins Maryland State Fair straw poll

This straw poll took place at the Maryland State Fair. You could vote from Friday, August 24, 2007 10 AM - Monday, September 03, 2007 10 PM. Only about 1000 votes were cast, indicating how bad the situation for the republican party is. 1000 votes at an event lasting more than a week...pretty bad. This comes after the GOP got less than half of what they expected in Iowa, and after the GOP had to slash its expectations at the Texas straw poll, from 10,000 to 3,000...and even then only 1300 votes were cast.

The straw poll numbers will be confirmed in a news release tomorrow, but here is the inside scoop from someone who helped count the ballots. There'll be a news release from the MD GOP tomorrow to make the numbers official.
Ron Paul 263 votes - 27.3%
Giuliani 220 votes -22.8%
Thompson 188 votes -19.5%
Mitt Romney - 89 (10%)
John McCain - 54 (6%)
Mike Huckabee - 35 (4%)
Tom Tancredo - 16 (2%)
Sam Brownback - 12 (1%)
Duncan Hunter - 3 (0%)
Write Ins:
New Gingrich - 17 (2%)
Bob Ehrilich - 3 (0%) (Ehrlich is former Republican Governor of MD)
Other - 11 (1%)
Spoiled ballots - 15 (2%) (e.g. voted for more than one candidate)
Total votes cast - 926


On top of such a bad showing, the Maryland GOP is broke and has numerous problems with membership. In fact the Maryland GOP is $50,500 in debt and only has $4,615 in cash remaining. Numbers can be seen in this article.

This win is also important, because it shows just how bad things really are...it didn't cost anything to vote, and you could cast your vote over a period lasting more than a week...and still only 963 votes were cast.

And we all know the situation will be even worse during primaries, where you'll actually have to go out of your way to vote in the primary. And unlike Ron Paul supporters, these other guys just don't have the spark to get out of bad to cast their vote. And who can blame them? The current front runners cannot be called republicans with a straight face. We have a cross dresser who married his cousin, a lobbyist who lobbied for an abortion group, Mr. Money Bags who is trying to buy this election and a drunken sailor who pissed away millions in donations. And of course you have a whole bunch of guys who don't even believe in evolution(Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo).