Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won with the support of 24 percent of more than 1,800 Republican activists. Romney wins SRLC straw poll

NEW ORLEANS — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the Southern Republican Leadership Conference’s quadrennial straw poll by a narrow margin Saturday while Sarah Palin finished a disappointing third.

Romney won with the support of 24 percent of more than 1,800 Republican activists gathered here for a low-key vote that offered an early glimpse of which Republicans are willing to be seen with a toe in the 2012 waters. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who still commands a strong if narrow following, finished second in the balloting by a single vote, while Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich each took 18 percent.


Palin has little organizational infrastructure and did apparently nothing to win the contest while Romney enthusiasts were out in force.

Still, that Romney would win the poll at an event he didn't show up for while Palin would come in tied for third place a day after she packed a room full of adoring fans suggests the sort of hyper-engaged activists who show up at such gatherings are practical-minded in their preferences for the next presidential campaign.

More than anything, though, the contest seemed to affirm the Republican Party’s all-consuming focus on the coming midterm elections and the declining relevance of presidential straw polls.

The SRLC offered politicians the option of striking their names from the ballot, and three popular figures, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, all removed their names.

Others did not: Romney and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, both moving aggressively to build national campaigns, appeared on the ballot, as did Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Rep. Mike Pence (R- Ind.) also let his name be listed and floated, along with Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and Paul.

Supporters of Paul and Romney were the only ones visibly organizing for the gathering. Paul’s Campaign for Liberty bought several hundred tickets for supporters, while a well-funded group called Evangelicals for Mitt – which says it operates independently of Romney’s official campaign – offered some 200 tickets for free to Republicans who would commit in writing to voting for Romney in the straw poll.

The results will provide a modest boost to Romney, a minor reality check to Palin and affirm, yet again, the intensity of Paul’s base of support.

But that the SRLC straw poll was not contested by any official campaign organization signals another step in the deterioration of these informal, but once hard-fought, contests.

At the same gathering in Memphis four years ago, presidential hopefuls went to great lengths. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the eventual winner, bused in and fed supporters from his Nashville hometown. McCain, aware that the conservative crowd wouldn’t tilt in his favor, tried to pre-empt defeat with a campaign to write in President Bush in a symbolic show of support. Romney that year raised eyebrows for the attention and money he devoted to competing in Memphis and at the Conservative Political Action Conference. He did the same in Iowa at its vaunted state GOP straw poll the following year. It all appeared to mean little when Huckabee effectively ended Romney’s campaign by winning the Iowa caucuses.

The early 2012 positioning has seen far less effort devoted to these traditional shows of strength.

This year’s straw poll was diminished by an intense focus on the coming midterm elections, seen by many Republicans as a vital chance to slow down President Obama’s agenda. Politicians are responding to the manifest urgency with which activists are approaching the 2012 election.

But the SRLC straw poll was also victim of the changing times: In an earlier political era, straw polls of activists were one of just a few ways of taking the temperature of party loyalists in the nascent stages of an election. Now, they compete with polls, online chatter, and above all an informal but intense battle for the attention of the Fox News Channel as central metrics of popularity and relevance inside the Republican Party.

This year, the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll – carried handily by Paul – was widely viewed as something of an embarrassment. When Paul’s victory was announced, the crowd booed.

The SRLC results were met with a collective shrug.