Mark Ambinder reports that Mitt Romney may have won a rigged straw poll at the national Young Republican convention — though it was Fred Thompson who got the biggest applause.
Packing clubs is an old machine trick, the kind of thing candidates for State Assembly do here in NYC. Jonathan Martin observes that Romney has a history of this kind of thing. The Young Republicans are defending the poll, but these Republicans don’t look very young to me.
Soren Dayton affirms that the real love in the room was for Thompson:
It was clear that Thompson is trying to channel the party base and the conservative movement. And it is clear that the party base, at least at the Young Republican convention, wanted it.
In general, Thompson’s strategy seems right now to be the empty vessel. To connect with the party faithful . It felt like he was “one of us.” He wasn’t pushing issues or policy positions. In the very brief interview with me and Liz Mair, he again spoke in principles, not specifics. But they were principles that we could rally around.
By contrast, I didn’t feel a lot of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney. He had a booth outside the convention room, but there were many more Rudy Giuliani stickers than Mitt Romney stickers.
Something to say?
