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Nigel Farage leader of the UKIP/caption
I attended the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend and as usual it ended with a much hyped but slanted presidential straw poll. Alternative conservative Rand Paul came in first place followed by Scott Walker then Ted Cruz Ben Carson and Jeb Bush. The reason the poll is not reflective of the most popular candidate among GOP faithful is simple: CPACs demographics are heavily skewed toward very young people who do not represent the actual spectrum of registered GOP voters. The 18-to-25-year-old age bracket made up a disproportionate 47 percent of those who voted in the straw poll and there were many under age 18 who also voted - not old enough to vote in real life. CPAC offers discounts and incentives to students and consequently the conference was flooded with Millennials. In reality only four winners of the past 20 CPAC straw polls have gone on to win the GOP nomination for president.
To those who say the young people supporting Rand Paul are emblematic of where the GOP is headed in a few years I say not so fast. I am from Generation X and remember how noisy the Ron Paul supporters of my generation were a few years back when he was at the height of his influence. Where are they now? They have grown up started families incomes and taxes and subsided into reality. They are no longer the loud idealistic grassroots activists they used to be. Advocating for legalizing pot is no longer so pressing.
Now dont get me wrong I actually like Rand Paul quite a bit except on foreign policy and think he has more principles than many of the potential GOP presidential candidates and his fellow members of Congress. However ISIS has now become the biggest political problem facing the U.S. a bad time to run for office with a non-interventionist foreign policy.
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