Politico’s chief columnist, Roger Simon, on Monday accused the media of under-reporting Congressman Ron Paul’s significant achievement in the Ames Straw Poll.

Paul came in second place in the Ames Straw Poll, with 4,671 votes, barely falling below Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s 4,823 votes. But the media has almost exclusively focused on Bachmann and other Republican presidential candidates, despite Paul having only 152 less votes than the congresswoman.

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“I admit I do not fully understand Ron Paul and his beliefs,” Simon said. “But I do understand when a guy gets shafted, and Ron Paul just got shafted.”

“If Bachmann’s victory at Ames was good enough to gain her enormous publicity and top-tier status, why was Paul’s virtual tie good enough only to relegate him to being ignored?” he asked.

Paul, a libertarian, has gained an enthusiastic following for his strong views on limited government, free market economics and non-interventionist foreign policy. In the 2008 Republican presidential primary, his views clearly made him an outlier, but — thanks in part to the tea party movement — many of his economic positions have now been adopted by mainstream Republicans.

Nevertheless, according the Simons, the media still treats him as “an exotic, unworthy of attention.”