Romney worked the CPAC straw poll

Mitt Romney's campaign, in need of a boost following a trio of losses last Tuesday, shelved their "no straw polls" policy and worked to win the CPAC vote.

A Republican source confirms to me that Romney's camp bought registrations at CPAC to ensure their victory at the straw poll. There was also a more visible presence. Two young men, one who identified himself as a staffer but declined to talk and another who said he was a volunteer, held up Romney signs Saturday morning near the entrance to the ballroom and urged attendees to vote for the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney's effort to win the vote was first reported by Jeff Zeleny, who wrote in the NYT Saturday that the campaign was "busing students from colleges along the Eastern Seaboard to show their support."

Appearing on CNN Sunday, Rick Santorum brought up Romney's campaign to wire CPAC.

"You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought, we've heard all sorts of things," he said, adding that his campaign "didn't pay" for supporters. Santorum did, though, have individuals at the conference, passing out stickers and urging attendees to vote in the balloting.

Asked directly if they paid for registrations, a Romney spokesperson avoided the question.

“Rick Santorum has a history of making statements that aren’t grounded in the truth," said Andrea Saul, noting only that Romney did indeed win CPAC and the Maine caucuses.

It's a sign of how much they feared the "Mitt-and-the-base" stories that would've come with a CPAC loss that Boston dropped their rule on straw polls and worked to win at the conservative confab. After the results came in, Romney's camp blasted an email to reporters noting the victory and Tweeted out a statement on Romney's feed.