Category: Ron Paul

For those of us who sometimes think Wisconsin is the center of the political universe, the best-seller, "Game Change," on the presidential election from New York Magazine's John Heilemann and Time magazine's Mark Halperin, is a good reality check.

The Wisconsin presidential primary -- remember how exciting it was here? -- gets two passing mentions.

One is because Wisconsin was where Michelle Obama said, "For the first time in my adult lifetime i'm really proud of my country."

Here is the other Wisconsin mention, in its entirety:

On February 19 Obama won his tenth straight contest, administering a 58-41 drubbing to Clinton in the Wisconsin primary, carrying virtually every demographic group and opening up a pledged delegate lead of 159.

Tommy Thompson's presidential campaign made a lot of news in Wisconsin, if nowhere else, as the Journal Sentinel checked in with him regularly and reported repeatedly that he said things were going just great. You may recall that he didn't get past Iowa.

In the book, he gets one mention, as a "no-shot":

The final numbers for the 597 people who voted in the straw poll (per Playbook) are:

1. Mike Huckabee 28.48%
2. Mitt Romney 12.40%
3. Tim Pawlenty 12.23%
4. Sarah Palin 12.06%
5. Mike Pence 11.89%
6. Newt Gingrich 6.70%
7. Bobby Jindal 4.69%
8. Rick Santorum 2.51%
9. Ron Paul 2.18%
10. Undecided 5.19%
11. Other 1.68% 

There are a few things to take from this. First, there's not a moderate in the bunch. Second, it's interesting that Tim Pawlenty and Mike Pence did as well as they did. That is, Mike H, Mittens, and Spunky all have national organizations, Tim and Mike P do not. If any of the people who voted in the straw poll were "regular voters" that would be even more interesting. But the voters in the straw poll are party activists. Therefore, it is likely that if this really WERE a straw poll of randomly selected Republicans from the whole party, and not just those attending the "values" summit, the numbers would be different - there are still a lot of "moderate" Republicans who wish Rudy had given it his all and actually RUN last year. Further, Ron Paul had a lot of support last year, just not from Republicans. However, on the "lessons learned" page, it seems possible that a lot of independents in closed-primary states might re-register in 2012 if he ran again.