Surprise! Hunter 3rd in Important Straw Poll

Washington, DC (TLS). South Carolina has become an extremely important destination for candidates in both Parties this year, as Party leaders designated the early South Carolina primary as a pivotal first test that could make or break a candidate. The state has received multiple visits from Republican and Democrat presidential candidates such as Duncan Hunter, R-CA, John McCain, R-AZ, Rudy Giuliani, R-NY, Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, Barack Hussein Obama, D-Ill., and Chris Dodd, D-CT.

A dark horse candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination is well on his way to receiving a major boost from this week's straw poll of the Spartanburg County Republican Party. U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter, R-CA, has emerged from the back of the pack to take third place in the important Republican straw poll.

Only a few months ago pundits had totally written off the candidacy of Duncan Hunter as a long-shot at best. Lacking in the name recognition and campaign funds of front runners Giuliani and McCain, Hunter was viewed as hardly a blip on the radar screen.

Hunter's sudden rise to the top three in the Republican race has raised eyebrows among the Party elite and enlivened the hopes of conservatives who feared that there would be no one in the race to represent them in either Party. As we have reported previously on The Liberty Sphere, Duncan Hunter has resonated with the voters in the upstate of South Carolina.

As a conservative Republican stronghold, the Greenville-Spartanburg area of South Carolina is beginning to embrace the message of Duncan Hunter, who speaks of peace through strength, the sanctity of human life, including the unborn, the need for a secure border and tough immigration reform, fair trade with countries such as China which have used the millions we send their way to oppose us, and low taxes. These 'Reagan Ideals' appeal to a broad cross-section of voters in the Greenville-Spartanburg area, who still consider President Ronald Reagan as perhaps the best U.S. President of the 20th century.

Hunter was first elected to Congress during the 'Reagan Revolution' in 1980, when Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter in a landslide and swept dozens of conservative Senators and Congressmen into office with him. Reagan turned right around the did the same thing in 1984, pummeling Walter Mondale in one of the largest landslides in the history of American politics.

Since that time, Duncan Hunter has not wavered from his conservative values.

While Hunter at this point stands in third place in the Spartanburg County Straw Poll, the count is not over. Bad weather in the area Thursday and Friday forced a cancellation of the vote count before all precincts were counted. The remaining 10 precincts will be counted next week.

Here are the results of the straw poll so far, with 81 out of 92 precincts counted:

John McCain--164
Rudy Giuliani--162
Duncan Hunter--158
Sam Brownback--85
Mitt Romney--80
Newt Gingrich--33
Mike Huckabee--21
Tom Tancredo--10
John Cox--4
Ron Paul--4
Condoleeza Rice--2

Several candidates tied with one vote.

As you can see by the results, Duncan Hunter is now competitive with both Giuliani and McCain, in spite of the previous lack of name recognition and the lack of a deep war chest of campaign donations. This will most definitely change.

The Liberty Sphere was impressed early-on with Duncan Hunter. He is one of the very few in either the U.S. House or Senate that has received a perfect grade of A+ from Gun Owners of America, which rates candidates and politicians based upon their support for Second Amendment rights.

We are pleased to see Mr. Hunter come from behind and move into a position of prominence. As we have said before, Hunter may well be THE candidate around whom conservatives and 'Reagan Democrats' can rally.