Rand Paul Squeaks Through CPAC Straw Poll Win

An indication of just how big a flop Rand Paul was, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C., was the straw poll taken on Saturday. As I reported a week ago, the conference was Rand Paul country.

Yet, Rand barely squeaked out a straw poll win. He received only 25% of the vote despite cruising into the conference with the wind in his sails because of his recent filibuster.  Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) came in second, with 23% of the vote.

Rick Santorum received eight percent, and Chris Christie took seven percent of the vote.

Rand failed to even top the numbers his father received in two prior years. In 2010, Ron Paul received 32% of the vote compared to 22% for Mitt Romney. In 2011, Ron took 30% while Romney placed second with 23%.

With the high profile filibuster just days old and the fact that a strong libertarian contingent attends CPAC, it suggests that, just as I suspected, Rand's CPAC speech was a dud. It moved no one into his camp.