Fascinating but meaningless

At this stage, presidential preference polls are almost meaningless. Still, they fascinate me as a sort of tracking of where things stand. Of course, in such straw polls, there's no attempt to make it a representative sample. This latest is skewed by many factors: who attended and spoke at the meeting, who made a big effort to have his supporters attend and vote, and what region it was held in (the South, here).

All of this makes the straw poll taken at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans this weekend badly skewed. But for what it's worth, here are the results:

1. Ron Paul - 612.
2. Jon Huntsman - 382.
3. Michele Bachmann - 191.
4. Herman Cain - 104.
5. Mitt Romney - 74.
6. Newt Gingrich - 69.
7. Sarah Palin - 41.
8. Rick Santorum - 30.
9. Tim Pawlenty - 18.

Ron Paul does well in these straw polls, because he reportedly packs the audience with his supporters. And he gets most of the libertarian vote, while everybody else is divided 10 or 12 ways. Jon Huntsman is the big surprise here. He did speak to the convention and is impressive, but he is clearly the most liberal in the group on social issues. You might say that, like Paul with libertarians, Huntsman easily gets all the moderate vote (assuming there are still a few).

Bachmann and Cain clearly were the Tea Party darlings, reflecting their 3rd and 4th place showings.

Romney, sort of ho-hum in 5th place, and Newt is stuck in 6th -- among Southern Repubs. So much for basing his campaign in a pretend office space in Atlanta. What a sham. It was simply window dressing for the opening announcement. The rented furniture has already been returned, and the office sits unused.

And what about poor Tim Pawlenty in 9th place, about 1% of the voters? He just can't seem to catch hold. And yet many pundits still see him as the eventual nominee -- as the consensus candidate who nobody really dislikes.

Interesting to watch this unfold.

Ralph