He came in second behind Romney. Pretty impressive for someone who didn't even have buses :-)
Mitt Romney won the Republican straw poll here decisively last night, delivering 31.5 percent of votes cast and solidifying his position as the man to beat in Iowa, the state that holds the critical first-in-the- nation caucuses.I thought Paul was supposed to come in second:
The former Massachusetts governor was the only major candidate who participated in the straw poll and greatly outspent his competitors, but last night Romney cast it as a clear victory.
"We get started here, this is really the big kick-off for my campaign," an ebullient Romney told reporters. He said the win was politically significant despite the absence of the other top-tier candidates. "The guys who decided not to play here, they'd have played if they thought they'd have won."
Representative Tom Tancredo came in fourth with 13.7 percent of the vote; US Representative Ron Paul of Texas got 9.1 percent; former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson 1.4 percent; former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani 1.3 percent; US Representative Duncan Hunter 1.2 percent; Senator John McCain of Arizona and Chicago businessman John Cox got less than 1 percent.Notice that Thompson beat the other no shows :-)