Well, not the primaries, he won two straw polls. But there’s less here than meets the eye.

First let’s look at Alabama:

Tom Tancredo – 0 (0%)

Sam Brownback – 2 (.75%)

John McCain – 2 (.75%)

Mike Huckabee – 6 (2%)

Rudy Giuliani – 7 (3%)

Fred Dalton Thompson – 9 (3%)

Duncan Hunter – 10 (4%)

Mitt Romney – 14 (5%)

Ron Paul – 216 (81%)

That’s right 216 votes out of a total of 266 votes cast. At it’s not entirely clear that many of the other candidates were actively seeking support in this straw poll. While it is impressive to see organization at the grass roots level like this, it’s not an indication of anything significant.

Then there’s New Hampshire:

Ron – 208 (73%)

Romney – 26

Huckabee – 20

Tancredo – 8

McCain – 7

Cox – 5

Hunter – 5

Fred Thompson – 3

Giuliani – 3

Brownback – 1

208 votes out of 286 cast. And, other than Tancredo and Huckabee, Paul was the only candidate who showed up for this straw poll. As I said while discussing the results of the Iowa Straw Poll last week, polls like this are usually pretty meaningless and are almost never an accurate predictor of the winner of a particular primary, or the nomination.

So, I guess what I’m saying, is, don’t let stuff like this lead you to think something significant is happening. It might, but the evidence just isn’t there yet.