If the final tally in the Republican Party of Florida’s straw poll yesterday is an indicator, it appears the GOP base won’t be forgiving Rick Perry any time soon for describing their opposition to educating undocumented children as “heartless.”
The day after Perry made the “heartless” comment at the Fox News debate in Orlando, he gave a rousing speech at a CPAC-Florida event that his campaign hoped would quell the unrest on the extreme right.
For good measure, Perry — like his principal rival, Mitt Romney — chose not to apologize for the ingratitude they and all the other Republican presidential candidates displayed to an active duty soldier who asked a question during the debate Thursday night about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But even their compounded rudeness to a gay soldier could not cut it with the Republicans’ gay-hating base.
Instead a huge majority of voters in the poll essentially opted out by choosing “none of the above,” a.k.a. the ultimately unelectable Herman Cain:
Here is the statement of the official results from the Republican Party of Florida:
Today at the Republican Party of Florida’s Presidency 5, 2,657 delegates cast their votes in the Party’s straw poll. The results of that straw poll are in and are as follows:1. Herman Cain, 37.1 %
2. Rick Perry, 15.4%
3. Mitt Romney, 14%
4. Rick Santorum, 10.9%
5. Ron Paul, 10.4%
6. Newt Gingrich, 8.4%
7. Jon Huntsman, 2.3%
8. Michele Bachmann, 1.5%
“None of the Above” Cain got a larger percentage of the votes than the combined share of votes for Perry and Romney. The reality is, Herman Cain’s campaign will not survive the South Carolina primary next year, so it’s hard to see this vote yesterday as anything other than a cry for help from the GOP base.
And look at Bachmann’s 1.5 percent. That is un-spinnable as anything but a rebuke from the right-wing extremist base in Florida, the first big state on next year’s primary calendar.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Rick Perry, a candidate best known for grinning and lying, is forced out of the race because the GOP-tea party base couldn’t handle it when, for once, he told them the truth.
