Being able to gauge how hot a candidate is - the PASSION they inspire in the party faithful - is crucial in primary season because on Election Day the side with the best ground game – committed volunteers who get out the vote in myriad ways - most often wins. Turning those volunteers on, and keeping them tuned in, is what straw poll events are all about. People who show up and vote are likely to volunteer when it really counts.
That is why the Values Voter Summit held this weekend by the Family Research Council deserves the ink it gets. Unfortunately in an effort at electronic outreach the Council left a tremendous loophole in how it tabulated the winner. All online voters had to do was pony up a buck and register. Not the same level of commitment as attendees showed at all. The result is a shocking disparity.
Among people who actually attended, Mike Huckabee romped home with 51.26% support, to Romney's 10.4%. But the numbers you are more likely to see reading your favorite Washington Pundit say that Romney narrowly won the day with 27.62% to Huckabee’s 27.15%. This figure is the total including electronic voting.
According to Mike Luo who was there:
“After the votes were tallied, there was a palpable tension felt walking around the Hilton Hotel, where the event was held. Delegates were overheard on their cell phones complaining about the results to friends.”
This is just what you don’t want – a brush fire of protest over a purely symbolic win that makes your opponents troops even more passionately committed to working against you. Playing fast and loose with the numbers at an event of self defined “values voters” to impress the press may well prove one of Romney’s more costly mistakes.
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