Cruz big winner in Values Voter straw poll; Huckabee places 7th
WASHINGTON — Voters in a leading Christian conservative straw poll chose U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz as their 2016 presidential nominee at a conference Saturday.
Attendees of the eighth annual Values Voter Summit embraced the Texas Republican in the poll taken at the four-day conference held by FRC Action, the political wing of the conservative Christian group Family Research Council.
Cruz received 317 of 762 votes, more than triple the number of votes received by runner-up Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who called the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act “the worst thing since slavery.”
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania, finished third with 13 percent of the vote — he had one vote less than Carson’s 102.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher who was governor for 10½ years, spoke at the conference Friday night and came in seventh in the presidential poll with 27 votes and ninth in the vice presidential poll with 29 votes.
Cruz held control of the Senate floor for 21 hours before the government shutdown at the beginning of the month to protest spending on the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. His act
of defiance made Cruz a hero to some on the right and drew Congress closer to an impasse over government spending.
Summit attendees have not picked the person who went on to be a major party presidential nominee in the four times they have voted in the past six years.
In 2011, attendees backed then-U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the anti-war activist and enemy of the Federal Reserve, with 37 percent of the vote. Georgia businessman Herman Cain came in second with 23 percent and Santorum was third with 16 percent. The group didn’t vote in 2012.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told reporters after the announcement that the poll shows conservatives don’t feel represented by the Republican Party.
“They are looking, in short, for a leader. They are looking for someone who will challenge the status quo, who will challenge the we-can’t mentality of the Republican establishment and speak clearly,” he said. “Ted Cruz has done that in the last month or so and he certainly did it yesterday.”
Cruz spoke Friday, saying he is tired of being told by Republicans, Democrats and the media that it is too late to get rid of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, much of which goes into effect Jan. 1.
“We said, ‘OK, we’ll go over their heads.’ Now, a lot of folks in Washington said, ‘Oh, you mean you’ll talk to Republican leadership?’” Cruz said. “We went over their heads to the American people.”
Cruz was heckled repeatedly by crowd members, some of whom were escorted out.
“I wish you would participate in the democratic process through speaking respectfully. It seems that President Obama’s paid political operatives are out in force today. And you know why? And you know why? Because the men and women in this room scare the living daylights out of them,” he said after one interruption.
This year, 21 names were entered in the straw poll. Other candidates included Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat; U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.; U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla.; Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J.; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.; U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of New York, a Democrat; U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas.
The same candidates were entered in the vice presidential straw poll.
Huckabee won the poll in 2009 and was runner-up in 2010.
Perkins said he thinks Huckabee dropped in the poll because he’s not on the front lines of standing up to the established Republican Party. Huckabee is host of cable and radio shows, including Huckabee on Fox News. “He’s kind of backed away from the idea of being a presidential candidate. People love the work that he’s doing on Fox. He is a thought leader,” Perkins said.
Huckabee hasn’t publicly announced whether he will make another bid for president in 2016.
“These are perilous times but they are not hopeless times,” Huckabee said in his speech.
He said his hopes aren’t in the next election, or the Republican Party and “absolutely not in the Democratic Party.”
“God has always worked through a remnant, and if there is a remnant of people who still have a seed of liberty within them … we are not on our own because, He, He is with us,” Huckabee said.