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View Full Version : BestOfNewOrleans.com: Southern Republican Leadership Conference




rp08orbust
04-07-2010, 01:57 AM
I'm impressed by how much of the article is devoted to speculation about the Ron Paul contingent. We need to be as focused on delivering a victory for Ron Paul as his enemies are focused on preventing it. Excerpts...


Last but not least, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul will deliver an address. Paul is the presidential candidate whose tack toward libertarianism and strict constitutionalism has won him fervent fans — and withering detractors — among traditional Republicans.

This year, one of the biggest SRLC draws seems to be Paul, the dark horse 2008 presidential candidate who upended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February when he trounced Romney in the straw poll. Paul's victory was controversial because of his strict constitutionalist beliefs :eek:, which don't always jibe with the family-values wing of the GOP. Indeed, this year schisms seem to be developing between traditional Republicans and their sometimes-uneasy allies — Libertarians and voters allied with the Tea Party movement.

Meanwhile, Paul and his fans seem to be preparing for another end-run straw-poll victory at the SRLC. Earlier this month, the Web site of his group Campaign for Liberty was "proud to announce a massively discounted rate on SRLC tickets for our supporters at $30 a ticket." Seems an anonymous donor bought a block of tickets for Paul fans. (VIP tickets to the SRLC are $700 apiece, while "partial access" tickets, allowing the bearer to watch most sessions elsewhere in the hotel via closed-circuit TV, are only $119. It wasn't clear which tickets were in the Paul bloc.)

Chad Rogers, publisher of the conservative Louisiana news aggregator Web site The Dead Pelican (www.thedeadpelican.com), is a fan who's coming just to hear Paul and meet him at a reception afterward. Rogers describes the Paul movement as "an interesting force in the Republican party. It kind of reminds me of the 'Draft Goldwater' movement. And they've both been described by the punditocracy to make them seem like kooks and wackos."
http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A71972

rp08orbust
04-07-2010, 02:05 AM
There's a bit of good news in the article:


For such a high-powered, media-savvy event, turnout for Southern Republican Leadership Conferences is traditionally small — by design. The March 2006 SRLC drew 2,000 people to Memphis, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Villere, who says the 2010 event will be the largest ever, is predicting a New Orleans turnout of 3,000.

A 50% increase in attendance over 2006 is a lot less than I have been fearing (CPAC 2010 attendance doubled over 2006 attendance). If the participation rate in the straw poll is the same as in 2006 (less than 75%), then that would mean a total of about 2,200 votes. I had been bracing myself for 2,500 to 3,000 votes.

If we can get Ron Paul 600 votes, I'd say he has a very good chance at winning the straw poll. 700 would almost guarantee it.