Cox Humiliated At New Hampshire Straw Poll

Our New Hampshire correspondent, a former Cox operative, says Cox was humiliated again in a straw poll, this time in Manchester, New Hampshire this Sunday.

Cox attended the poll but got only 3 votes out of more than 170 cast. In contrast, Ron Paul got 114 votes to win it. Cox will still likely crow about tying no-show Tom Tancredo and besting John McCain, who got 2 votes, but has also announced that he hates straw polls and won't compete in them.

Ou man on the ground says:

"Cox attended the event, spoke on the stage, and still only got three votes. How embarrassing! One vote was likely from Cox hanger-on Chris Richter, who was at the event, the other from a friend of Chris's who was helping him, and the other was from a woman who was heard (by me) to say, as she voted at the voting station, "I'm undecided, but I'll vote for this Cox guy, because he's the only candidate who showed up." Cox did show up, to his credit, but then ruined it by rambling on and on and on when he had his chance on the stage, prompting one guy to say "When's he going to shut up!" And yes, he started with his scary-crazy, unfunny 'bitch joke' - "I have four daughters a wife and a female dog" - which every paid operative in three states told him to stop using before they quit in disgust or were fired. The strange, out-of-context joke bombed yet again.

A bit of behind-the-scenes drama for your readers: Richter RAN over to an organizer of the event during Cox's rant because he was FURIOUS that one of the bands was breaking down their equipment on stage while his man was speaking on the stage in front of them. Cox was using a microphone, and was nearly yelling (as usual) so it wasn't as if they were drowning him out, but Richter was throwing a highly visible hissy fit in front of the stage because of the indignity of it all. Never mind that a former congressman and a declared '08 candidate for governor had also spoken while two of the bands that performed earlier had broken down their equipment. Cox is FAR too important for that, you know. How sad and pathetic. And typical. Apparently, Richter still worships at the altar of Cox.

Word spread around the event as they asked "What's that all about?" and every Manchester Republican was laughing about Richter by the end of the day. As if what you aptly called his "political suicide note" last week wasn't enough, this killed it for Richter in New Hampshire."

NH Cox Coordinator Writes (Political) Suicide Note

Johnnie Cox's man in New Hampshire, and probable ONLY supporter there, Chris Richter, wrote an amazingly BAD "open letter" to Republicans this past week. In it he condemned state Party Chairman Fergus Cullen for not taking Cox seriously.

After prattling on for about 200 words about his personal history in the party, Richter finally cuts to the chase and starts whining about his man not being taken seriously:

"On September 5th, the New Hampshire Republican Party will co-host the next Republican Presidential Debate. Invitations have been sent out, but once again John has not received one. Of all the debates thus far, we had expected John to be able to get into this debate. The thinking was three fold. First, New Hampshire prides itself on allowing lesser known candidates the opportunity to be heard. Second, John has campaigned in New Hampshire more than many of the other candidates. Third, John has given money to the state Republican Party, many of our local GOP organizations, and has had numerous dinners with State GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen. Apparently Fergus has no apprehensions to take John's money as a Presidential Candidate, just apprehensions to treat him like one."

Let's stop to digest this amazing statement.

New Hampshire allows fringe candidates to be heard, yes. But it does not guarantee them success. Many candidates in the past have campaigned there, and gotten the standard 300 votes out of hundreds of thousands cast. Going to New Hampshire doesn't guarantee votes, either. One politically active friend of this blog tells me that some have actually MOVED to the state, only to stubbornly remain known as "minor" candidates. (In fact, moving to the state seems destined to make one a "minor" or "fringe" player, because of the stink of desperation they then acquire, he says.)

Richter then talks about an email campaign he initated to get Mr. Cullen to change his mind about Cox. We're certain here at John Cox:The Facts that this amounted to about 20 emails, but we digress.

Richter reports that despite being wooed by Cox at dinner "numerous" times, Cullen's reasonable response to all of these has been:

"Thanks for the note. Hard work alone is not enough to give someone free national TV time. John needs to demonstrate an ability to persuade individuals to support him."

BINGO. Kudos to Fergus Cullen for nailing Cox and knowing that unlike in South Carolina, where Cox simply paid $25,000 and got on the primary ballot, or in Iowa, where he somehow convinced GOP officials to insert his name on the Ames Straw Poll ballot, the state party in New Hampshire showed him that they will not be bought.

Cullen also knows that Cox has not built any kind of base of support in his state, any more than he did in Iowa. He also knows that he is polling at a solid zero percent. That's 1 point lower than Brownback, who's at 1 percent or less in state polls.

Cue the lawsuit against the New Hampshire GOP. It didn't work in South Carolina, though, and it won't work in this case to get Cox on the stage with the REAL candidates.

No-Name Ray McKinney Thrashes No-Name John Cox

Well, the results are in from the Texas Straw Poll and they don't look good for Johnnie Cox. Fred Thompson dominated the event, besting naive son Ron Paul, 266 to 217 votes. Huckabee and Guiliani were a distant third and fourth with 83 and 78 votes, repepectively, followed by Romney with 61.

The rest of the field got the same as Romney combined, split between three no-names, the rapidly fading McCain (8 votes), and Brownback and Trancredo, both getting 6 votes for their tire-spinning campaign efforts.

While Cox is likely to issue a news release BRAGGING about beating these three, he'd better watch out for Ray McKinney of Georgia, who clobbered him 28 to 10 votes. McKinney's speech at the Texas event got rave reviews (at least on the McKinney blog).

Maybe McKinney should start a nasty, hateful campaign of spite against the media for not playing up his great "victory" in Texas against (as he puts it) "Two Senators, a congressman, a lawyer, and a doctor."

Somehow, however, we don't think McKinney would launch such a campaign. It seems like he actually understands that being positive gets results, and that atacking the media wouldn't work in his favor -- unlike Cox.

Results:
20.5% Fred Thompson (266 votes)
16.17% Ron Paul (217 votes)
6.4% Mike Huckabee (83 votes)
6% Rudy Giuliani (78 votes)
4.7% Mitt Romney (61 votes)

2.2% Ray McKinney (28 votes)
.77% John Cox (10 votes)
.62% John McCain (8 votes)
.46% Sam Brownback (6 votes)
.46% Tom Tancredo (6 votes)
.23% Hugh Cort (3 votes)