In a blog post of yesterday, Michelle Malkin correctly (and somewhat smugly) points out that former Republican candidate Mitt Romney has won the CPAC straw poll. In her post, she links to an Associated Press article published on FoxNews.com You Decide ’08:

WASHINGTON — Talk about cold comfort.

Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Thursday, won a straw poll of conservative activists on Saturday, edging out likely nominee John McCain.

Ballots for the straw poll conducted at the Conservative Political Action Conference were collected Thursday morning through Friday afternoon. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, quit the race in a midday speech to the conference on Thursday.

In the straw poll vote, Romney got 35 percent and McCain 34 percent. Mike Huckabee and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas tied with 12 percent.

Romney won the straw poll at the conference last year.

On another question, two-thirds said they would vote for McCain if he’s the eventual nominee, two in 10 said they would vote for someone else and about one in 10 said they would not vote.

What Ms. Malkin (and Fox and the Associated Press) failed to highlight in her post was the ”before and after” voting pattern at CPAC. By this, I mean how many votes Romney received from CPAC attendees before he suspended his campaign, and how many votes he received after he pulled out. This voting pattern tells an interesting story.

From the CNN Political Ticker (via Captain Ed at Captain’s Quarters):

First, from Captain Ed Morrissey:

Mitt Romney narrowly won the CPAC straw poll, but he did so mainly on the strength of ballots cast before his withdrawal. The final results took a back seat to the story told by the shift in voting after the first day’s events. [Emphasis added.]

Then from CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney narrowly beat John McCain, 35 to 34 percent, in a straw poll of conservative political activists gathered Saturday in Washington — a vote that is viewed as a barometer of support from that major GOP voting bloc.

The announcement of Romney’s win was greeted by cheers from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference. McCain is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

Roughly one-quarter of the votes in the three-day CPAC 2008 straw poll were cast before Mitt Romney dropped out of the presidential race, and three-quarters after his withdrawal.

In votes cast before Romney left the race, he beat McCain 44 to 27 percent. Among votes gathered after Romney’s withdrawal, McCain led Romney 37 to 32 percent. [Emphasis added by moi.]

So why would I think that the “before and after” voting behavior of these “dedicated conservatives” is relevant to the story? And what could it possibly do to change the fact that Romney won the straw poll?

Well, it can’t change the fact that Romney won. But it sure as hell says something about the depth of the convictions held by the conservative attendees at CPAC–about their moral certitude, as it were.

The CPAC attendees as a whole showed pretty much the same adherence to their belief system that Romney himself showed during his campaign. In general they voted for Romney before he pulled out, but then voted for McCain once Romney was gone. In other words, they wet their fingers and then held them up into the air to see which way the wind was blowing.

In other words, THEY FLIP-FLOPPED!

They pulled a Mitt!

And Ms. Malkin wanted to gloat a bit about Romney winning an essentially meaningless poll, but didn’t want to highlight the hypocrisy inherent in her own “political movement.” (She also didn’t want to unnecessarily highlight the fact that she was basing her post on a piece from her arch nemesis, the Associated Press.)

Oh, yeah. Before I sign off, I must mention that Fox News is guilty of the same. Did anyone else out there get the feeling that FNC was pushing HARD for Romney? (In a “fair and balanced” way, of course.)

MALKIN ALERT! Speak of the Diablo! Malkin is making a guest appearance on FNC as I write this!

LIVE BLOGGING MICHELLE MALKIN!!!!

When asked about the mood among dedicated conservatives upon hearing the news that McCain is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, she said that her message to conservatives is, “Get fired up!”

Malkin:

You know, that is my message. You know, Reagan was the Happy Warrior.

Interesting that she would know that “Happy Warrior” thing…given the fact that she was only 19 years old when Reagan left office.

She continues:

And despite a lot of the dispiritedness and depression and dyspepsia—which is, uh, what a lot of establishment Republicans have diagnosed grassroots conservatives with—despite all that there is a lot to be positive about. There is a lot of work to be done, uh, between now and November. And conservatism, the ideology, doesn’t live or die with a single, uh, personality or a single issue, and there’s a lot that conservatives can do in terms of walking the walk, uh, of their values and, uh, of their principles and their beliefs. And it starts with supporting a lot of their local and state Republican officials who have been, um, more honest, uh, honest and, and, uh, more consistent about supporting the things that they believe in. A lot of those people are up for reelection—a lot of the senators, for example, who opposed John McCain during the amnesty vote last year are up for election. They could use help.

When asked what these poor, poor, dispirited conservatives should do, Malkin replies:

Well look, there’s been a lot of talk and we’ve [is there a mouse in her pocket?] reported a lot of talk on here, on our airwaves [which airwaves?] of people saying that they can’t simply hold their noses—which is what [inaudible] McCain expects them to do. Um, and there are a lot of people who simply won’t. Look, let’s be realistic. They’re not going to vote for, for Hillary Clinton, so what are they going to do? I don’t believe that they should just sit home and do nothing. If they can’t stomach pulling the lever for John McCain, there are other people they can pull the lever for. [Emphasis added.]

Other people such as whom? The “Other McCain”? (A Malkin moniker of choice, used flippantly and obliquely to refer to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.)

She’s going nowhere with this, frankly. But the Gods of mercy have descended from the heavens; Fox News anchor Julie Banderas has mercifully cut her off in mid-stride, telling her that they have no more time. Which is a good thing because this Michelle Malkin live blogging thing was turning into a rather tedious and dreary thing–especially since she wasn’t saying anything that she didn’t say in her “Quo Vadis” post of last Thursday. (Besides, live blogging meaningless crap is Michelle’s job.)

Same old mantra, different day.

And don’t you absolutely LOATHE dispiritedness and depression and dyspepsia?

I do. They burn the flesh.

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