Liberty Maven

Ron Paul came in 5th with 9.1% of the vote in the Iowa Straw Poll. The full results are here:

11th John Cox: 41 votes
10th John McCain: 101 votes
9th Duncan Hunter: 174 votes
8th Rudy Giuliani: 183 votes
7th Fred Thompson: 203 votes
6th Tommy Thompson: 1039 votes
5th Ron Paul: 1305 votes
4th Tom Tancredo: 1961 votes
3rd Sam Brownback: 2192 votes
2nd Mike Huckabee: 2587 votes
1st Mitt Romney: 4516 votes

I’m impressed by Huckabee’s showing.  Apparently, he had many FairTax supporters there for him, as he is a major supporter.

Ron Paul finished exactly where I expected he would finish, but I thought the percentage would have been lower. Considering he is polling at 2% in most national scientific polls I think this is a really good showing.  Also the fact that every candidate above him and a few below him  campaigned  very hard in Iowa for months and Paul spent just 1 week there (this past week) I think 9.1% is encouraging.

Unfortunately, I don’t think 5th place and 9.1% will be enough for the main stream media to pay more attention to him though. I think he needed 3rd or better for that.

The poor showing of Tommy Thompson will likely make him drop out of the race. He said he needed 1st or 2nd to continue.  He finished in 6th.

Ron Paul said that his campaign is just getting started and vowed to continue no matter the Iowa results. Earlier today one of the Ron Paul Iowa campaign leaders was asked what results did he expect. He said 5th place. So it seems expectations were met within the campaign as well.

So what is next on the agenda? Spreading Ron Paul’s freedom message further.