Teabagger Presidential Straw Poll

A couple of thousand teabaggers met in Phoenix this last weekend for a policy summit and cheerleading session. Leaders from many different teabagger groups were there. One of the last events they had was a straw poll to see just who these teabagger leaders were considering supporting for the Republican presidential nomination. The results of the straw poll were a little surprising.

The winner of the poll was Herman Cain (pictured above), former CEO of Godfather Pizza and current right-wing radio talk show host. Although he finished first,he got less than a quarter of the vote. And that could be because he was one of only three candidates to actually attend and speak to the teabaggers. The other two finished in second and third place (Ron Paul and Tim Pawlenty).

Here is how the poll came out:

Herman Cain...............22%
Tim Pawlenty...............16%
Ron Paul...............15%
Sarah Palin...............10%
Mitt Romney...............6.5%
Michele Bachmann...............5.6%
Everyone else had little support

Even though she didn't attend the teabagger summit, Sarah Palin has to be disappointed in the outcome of this straw poll. She (and Michele Bachmann) consider themselves to be the queens of the teabagger movement, and would have been expected to do a little better. It doesn't look like these teabagger leaders consider Palin and Bachmann to be viable candidates, and if the teabaggers don't support them then where is their support going to come from?

The poll won't hurt Romney. He's never been a favorite of the teabaggers, who consider him more of a moderate Republican rather than one of their own. If he gets the nomination it will be because establishment moderates support him and conservatives think he's the only one that could beat Obama.

Of course straw polls don't mean much this far out and I seriously doubt Cain could do that well with the rank-and-file teabaggers. In fact, Ron Paul easily won the online poll conducted in conjunction with the summit. But it is still interesting -- especially in the rebuff of Palin.