Rick Santorum Wins South Carolina Straw Poll

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) – Republican Rick Santorum got credit for showing up and won a 2012 presidential straw poll of party activists in the crucial early voting state of South Carolina, organizers said on Saturday.

Santorum, a conservative from Pennsylvania, was the only presidential candidate to attend the South Carolina party's annual dinner on Friday night. He won 150 out of 408 votes cast in the presidential preference poll of dinner attendees.

That trounced second-place finisher Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who received 61 votes. In third place was former pizza executive Herman Cain with 44 votes.

Three others finished with more than 20 votes -- real estate tycoon Donald Trump with 29, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has repeatedly said he will not run, with 22 and U.S. Representative Michelle Bachmann with 22.

Many South Carolina Republicans were annoyed that the party's highest profile candidates skipped the first 2012 Republican presidential debate they sponsored on Thursday. It was attended by five lesser known candidates.

Those five -- Santorum, Cain, U.S. Representative Ron Paul, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson -- were invited to speak at the dinner, but only Santorum showed up.

"To those who didn't come, you get a pass this time but you sure as hell better come next time," Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said at the dinner.

Votes in the poll were cast for a total of 16 different potential candidates in a slow-starting and unsettled Republican nominating race that has not produced a clear front-runner.

The other candidates to register in double-digits in the poll were former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 16 and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels with 15.

Others who tallied single-digit totals included Paul with 8, Pawlenty with 7, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 6 and former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsmann with 4.

(Reporting by John Whitesides; Editing by Chris Wilson)

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Jced]

10:27 AM on 05/12/2011

I think this is great news.... Then the President could spend about .16 on his campaign!

[joeyfoto]

11:44 AM on 05/11/2011

I think Rick Santorum would make a great President of South Carolina.

His name certainly makes a wonderful pun.

[Rory07]

11:48 PM on 05/09/2011

Quoting Rick Santorum - So much for the melting pot...This is how he sees our country and sadly yes i quote. Wake up America. If you listened to these candidates you would run the other way.

As a result of multicultural relativism we are seeing the American aspiration eroded, our common purpose lost, and a “re-appearing tyranny and oppression” that is not only poised against us abroad but is also pointing its dagger at us here at home. This is especially true in some of the Islamist communities, where separation from the rest of America is sacrosanct and intellectual assimilation degraded-and where the equality of every human being is not taught as a self-evident truth. Our American sense of toleration, in other words, is now protecting noxious philosophies that are anti-American.

[Erica Coyle]

09:09 PM on 05/09/2011

I have to disagree that Santorum won this debate...this was only the first of many to come but in my opinion it was Herman Cain who walked away with this one! Never did the word "I" come out of his mouth but the word "we" as in WE THE PEOPLE came across loud and clear!

[odalaigh]

06:14 PM on 05/09/2011

How to spin this straw poll win? Hmmm... Santorum--the name on the Republican voter's lips...

[Jced]

10:28 AM on 05/12/2011

Ewww!

[odalaigh]

05:31 PM on 05/09/2011

Senator Graham might have gotten a little frothy there.

[PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS]

04:45 PM on 05/09/2011

Crushing the hopes of all those hoping for a new wave of man-dog sex in the comming years..................

[HHHarry]

04:09 PM on 05/09/2011

By straw poll they mean that all the people who voted had straw for brains, like the scarecrow...

[PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS]

04:44 PM on 05/09/2011

PRICELESS!

[pray4words]

03:31 PM on 05/09/2011

SO THERE ARE 250 WHO ARE NOT WILLING TO VOTE FOR THIS MAN SO WHY NOT TALK ABOUT THESE HIGH NUMBERS I DO NOT WANT ANY ONE RUNNING FOR OFFICE THAT WOULD CAUSE THE WORLD TO CLOSE THEIR DOORS TO AMERICA AND OUR PRODUCTS ELECTING MEN LIKE THIS ONE WILL CAUSE SUCH ACTIONS...TELL US ABOUT THE HIGH NUMBERS THAT SAY HE** NO TO THIS MAN...THE STORY SCARES THOSE ALREADY NOT HAPPY WITH THIS DEMOCRATIC PROGRESS...

[YourNewNeighbor]

02:50 PM on 05/09/2011

I love that picture of him singing "Hero" by Mariah Carey.

[madisonhack]

02:29 PM on 05/09/2011

"Santorum, a conservative from Pennsylvania, was the only presidential candidate to attend the South Carolina party's annual dinner on Friday night. He won 150 out of 408 votes cast in the presidential preference poll of dinner attendees."

Only in the NASCAR state could a driver be the only one on the track and still come in fourth.

[JumpySnark]

02:25 PM on 05/09/2011

What this? Poles in South Carolina are covered in Santorum?? Why, that's enough to make me want to marry my dog...

[AmericanDoughboy]

02:10 PM on 05/09/2011

Frothy!

[rextrek]

01:28 PM on 05/09/2011

awe savor it Ricky....cause thats the ONLY win you're gonna get..LOL ..and Very soon, you'll be able to crawl back UNDER the Rock from where u came.

[nypapajoe]

12:27 PM on 05/09/2011

Oh, watch out! This clown got a better chance of being the next Ronald McDonald!