The Texas governor had counted on the Florida beauty contest to boost his chances after a lackluster performance in Thursday night’s Republican presidential candidates debate, and he’d actively courted delegates. But with just 15 percent of the 2,657 votes cast, Perry won fewer than half the 37 percent going to Cain and just a fraction more than his main rival Mitt Romney, who did not actively participate in the electioneering.
"We were all looking at Perry as our knight in shining armor, but we're finding out he has some baggage," Joyce Estes, a delegate from Apalachicola, told the Wall Street Journal. "The question is how much baggage we can accept."
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Such votes are hardly representative of all voters, or even of a cross-section of typical Republican voters. Those voting at straw polls are party activists – in this case those at the weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
So while Cain, a businessman who’s never held elected office, can point to the straw poll results as support for his “999 Plan” for economic growth, it doesn’t necessarily advance him beyond the second tier of Republican presidential hopefuls.
The unscientific vote didn’t do much for Michele Bachmann either. Like Romney, she was not actively participating in the straw poll. But her name was on the ballot, where she came in dead last among the eight candidates – a far cry from her first-place finish in the Iowa straw poll in mid-August.
Florida is an important swing state, perhaps more so since it likely will move up in the primary/caucus calendar, following Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada in the candidate-selection process.
All the candidates will compete in Florida, and Cain’s victory gives him at least a morale boost for his effort.
"This is a sign of our growing momentum and my candidacy that cannot be ignored," Cain said after the results had been announced. “I will continue to share my message of 'common sense solutions' across this country and look forward to spending more time in Florida, a critical state for both the nomination and the general election.”
But in national polls, Cain generally remains back in the pack in single digits, and most analysts give him little chance of winning the nomination.
The latest Rasmussen poll gives him just 7 percent; the McClatchy-Marist poll has him at 5 percent, as does the CBS News/New York Times poll of Republican primary voters; the Bloomberg News national poll gives him 4 percent; and the CNN/Opinion Research poll puts Cain at 5 percent.
As reported by Politico.com, here are Saturday’s straw poll results:
1. Herman Cain, 37.1%
2. Rick Perry, 15.4%
3. Mitt Romney, 14%
4. Ron Paul, 10.4%
5. Rick Santorum, 10.9%
6. Newt Gingrich, 8.4%
7. Jon Huntsman, 2.3%
8. Michele Bachmann, 1.5%
Cain, as he has done at similar activist events around the country, swept the crowd away with an impassioned speech urging the 3,000 delegates to “send Washington a message” that the nation is “ready for a problem solver, not another politician.” The Atlanta businessman was one of only three candidates to appear in person; Gingrich and Santorum were the others.
Cain’s message struck a chord with delegates like Jeff Lukens, 54, who came to the Orange County Convention Center expecting to vote for Perry but said the Texas governor gave "a disappointing performance in the debate."
The Republican activist said he had recognized that debating "is probably not [Perry's] forte" but still was surprised by the governor's performance Thursday night. Lukens, who also attended the GOP debate in his hometown of Tampa last week, said he gave Perry "a pass" on the immigration issue, because he's a border-state governor. But he found the Texan’s answer on a question about Pakistan to be "incoherent."
Going into the nonbinding popularity contest, Perry invested far more money and manpower than his GOP presidential rivals.
At a lavish buffet breakfast Saturday, provided free by his campaign to convention delegates, Perry said his rivals were making “a big mistake” to skip the event.
“Ronald Reagan understood how important it was in ’79, and that’s the reason I’m here today,” said the Texas governor, who left town after mingling with hundreds of breakfast guests for about an hour. The delegates who ate Perry’s scrambled eggs, bacon and ho gave his eight-minute breakfast speech a rather perfunctory reception.
Perry’s defeat was also a significant blow to the Florida Republican Party. State GOP officials had heavily promoted what they described as their straw ballot’s predictive power.
“As Florida goes, so goes the nation, and as you go, so goes Florida,” Republican Gov. Rick Scott told the delegates, after pointing out that that the winners of earlier editions—Reagan in 1979, George H.W. Bush in 1987 and Bob Dole in 1995—went on to become the GOP nominee the next year.
Cain, who invested more time than money into the Florida convention, spent three days in and around Orlando, parked his campaign bus outside the convention center and played host to hundreds of delegates at a hotel reception the night before the vote.
However, his lightly funded campaign has virtually no infrastructure, little organization and remains far behind the leaders in the polls. Even those who voted for him Saturday said they don’t expect him to win the Florida primary next winter.
Lukens said he treated the straw ballot like a pre-season football game, rather than an actual primary vote. "I know Cain isn't going to be nominated," he said. "This was an opportunity to vote how you really feel.
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