Some interesting insight from the official press conference on the straw poll. The results they announced in the general session are actually the sum of both the online poll of Family Research Council Action members, and the representatives gathered here today. Only 1,537 votes were cast manually on-site, and another 600 or so of the people in attendance at the summit voted online as well. So only 2,137 of the total 5,776 vote represented what went on here this weekend; the rest of the votes were from members who have been able to vote online since August.
Among the voters who voted in-person today, Mike Huckabee got a whopping 51.26 percent of the vote. Romney, who won the overall vote, got only 10.4 percent of the on-site votes. The others didn't even break out of the single digits.
FRC's Tony Perkins says that the people who came to the summit are likely to be the leaders in their respective churches or community groups back home – meaning, many of them will be taking a pro-Huckabee message back with them. "I believe Gov. Huckabee will get a significant bounce out of this," said Perkins.
Another topic the press was all over in the conference was whether or not the FRC and other "values voters" will run support a third-party candidate if the GOP candidate isn't firmly anti-abortion. Leaders are holding additional outside meetings on the subject this weekend. "I'm not going to comment on a meeting I have no control over," said Perkins. But he did note several times that the FRC and other social conservative groups won't fall in line behind a candidate who's not explicitly pro-life. "We've drawn a line on abortion and we will not cross it," he said.
--Kate Sheppard
