Romney won the straw poll with 38 percent of the vote; Santorum came in 2nd (31%), and last year’s winner - Ron Paul - came in 4th (12%).
Not sure this is the best thing for Romney; he won the CPAC straw poll in 2007, 2008 and 2009 and lost the GOP nomination. Perhaps the campaign hopes it’ll help with movement conservatives in the upcoming primary states, but more likely the vast majority of voters who are not activists are not going to be swayed by the results of a straw poll which has mixed results when it comes to picking eventual nominees.
Past posts on CPAC’s straw poll:
The CPAC Straw Poll (2/13/2011)
EDIT: had a wrong year in there.
