Here's a novel way of preventing Ron Paul supporters from notching up straw poll wins: Cancel the polls when they arrive. Paulblogger BlueEagle gave this account of the San Francisco Republican Alliance poll in the Ron Paul Street team forums.
I arrived at 7:00 for dinner, speeches by representatives of each candidate and then a straw poll.

Unfortunately, at around 9:45pm when the straw poll was about to take place, Gail Neira of the SF Republican Alliance, announced that she was cancelling the straw poll because it was unfair. She was referring to the approximately 40 Ron Paul supporters that were standing in the back of the room with Ron Paul signs. She went on to say that she was overwhelmed by the number of Ron Paul supporters that showed up, but by that time the crowd was in an uproar.

I was outraged and so was everyone else. It was very difficult to hold back the emotions and remain calm. I can only imagine what will happen in the primaries, when too many Ron Paul supporters show up. Will they just cancel the elections?

To be accurate, the dinner was $33 and Gail allowed people who didn't want to eat or couldn't make it in time for dinner to pay $5 to participate in the straw poll later in the evening. This wasn't really the issue, since most of the people that showed up would have paid the $33 and said so, when she used money as an excuse.

Special bonus feature: Neira made the decision while wearing a Santa hat.

More video here.

UPDATE: Lew has more:

The featured speaker was Republican State Senator Sam Aanesta (CA 4th SD). The Senator treated the audience to an hour long election pitch for Fred Thompson that cured the insomnia of all in attendance. After endless delays of meaningless trivia the doors were opened to the late comers to the straw poll each of whom had paid $5 for admission. The flood of Ron Paul supporters entered the room to join an already substantial number of Ron Paul supporters that had attended the 'banquet'."A shocked Gail Neira in consultation with the Fred Thompson Northern CA Coordinator cancelled the straw poll vote offering a series of fraudulent, incomprehensible and incoherent reasons. The result was chaos as more than one hundred Ron Paul supporters objected to the outright deception. Neira’s ratings reached a level of unreality beyond description. Security was called to evict the peaceful if upset Ron Paul followers. When I asked that a picture be taken to attest to security attacking the 79-year-old me, security turned and disappeared.

 

To paraphrase the fictionialized Thomas More, it profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world... but for a Republican straw poll in San Francisco? And for Floppin' Fred Thompson?

 

Who Hearts Huckabee?
Libertarians John Tabin and Shawn Macomber, blogging at the American Spectator, are scratching their heads about Mike Huckabee. Not just the candidate, but the media love-fest. Tabin:
Am I the only one who finds Huckabee viscerally unappealing? There's nothing endearing to me about a cross between a diet guru and a televangelist selling condominiums in Heaven, which is how Huckabee strikes me. The guy's so full of crap I can smell it wafting out his ears. He's running on a quirky-at-best tax plan that has no chance of passing, and gets a free pass from some of the same people who harp endlessly on the alleged phoniness of Mitt Romney (whose left pinky is better qualified for the presidency than Huckabee).
Tabin's not alone. Monday night I talked with a former GOP congressman/Romney endorser about Huckabee's surge and he seemed just as mystified. But he wore a sort of shit-eating grin when he talked about the anti-Huckabee backlash to come. "He's been so under the radar that no one's taken a look at his record on immigration," he said, giving one example. "I think you're going to see that change soon, though."

However... what if it doesn't? The Huckabacklash hypothesis relies on the mainstream media getting bored of Huckabee and deciding to exposes his personal weirdness and scandals. There is no indication of this happening. Here's one (admittedly flawed) metric: Do a Lexis search for mentions in major newspapers of "Romney" and "Tavares," as in Daniel Tavares Jr, the murderer released by a judge Romney appointed. There were 59 mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that broke about two weeks ago. Then I did a search for "Huckabee" and "Dumond," as in Wayne Dumond, the paroled rapist who committed murder after a parole board, urged on by Huckabee, let him out. Twenty-five mentions from January 1 to December 3 for a story that had been pushed by various people all year.

The fact is that reporters really, really like Huckabee. One reason is his general affability but another is something the other GOP candidates can't steal: His liberalism. Much as reporters want Barack Obama to succeed to diminish the power of more radical black politicians (something I noodled three years ago), I think most (less me) like the idea of a Beliefnet/Michael Gerson big government conservative taking the religious right over from the Bill Bennetts and Pat Robertsons.

There's a Democratic Debate Happening Right Now
It's on NPR, and it started at 2, and thus far the Democratic candidates are saying nothing surprising, although the downy softness of the radio format makes the attacks seem a little blunter. The debate about the Kyl-Lieberman Iran resolution, so boiling hot in previous debates, is pretty substantive, apart from the predictable invective of John Edwards.

Clinton: I supported the resolution as part of diplomacy with Iran. We need carrots and sticks: That was a stick. Iran changed its behavior