Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was declared the winner of this year’s Values Voter Summitstraw poll, taking 37 percent of the vote. Saturday morning, Paul delivered a rousing speech to a crowded ballroom, emphasizing an anti-war, anti-Federal Reserve and anti-abortion position.
“About the time we had Roe versus Wade, we also had the breakdown of our monetary system, the rejection of the biblical admonition that we have honest weights and measures and honest money,” Paul said. “And not to have honest weights and measures meant we were counterfeiting the money and destroying the value of the money, which implies, even in biblical times, they weren’t looking for a central bank that was going to counterfeit our currency.”
His supporters intermittently chanted “Ron Paul” and “End the Fed!” during the speech. Many of them left the room immediately afterwards.
Herman Cain came in second with 23 percent of the vote, followed by Rick Santorum (16 percent), Rick Perry (8 percent), Michele Bachmann (8 percent), Mitt Romney (4 percent) Newt Gingrich (3 percent), undecided (1 percent) and Jon Huntsman (0 percent), who did not attend the Values Voter Summit.
Values Voters picked four potential running mates in the vice presidential straw poll: Bachmann, Cain, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Santorum. Ron Paul was the official VP winner with 14 percent of the vote. Bachmann scored second with 12.
Whether Romney’s camp will spin today’s results as insignificant, that was not their position in 2007 . After Mitt Romney won the Values Voter Summit straw poll, his campaign spokesperson at the time, Kevin Madden, said: “The vote is a validation of Governor Romney’s core message to grass-roots Republican activists.” Of course, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who only got 2 percent of the votes at the straw poll, went on to win the GOP nomination.