Ron Paul turns internet vote into solid showing at straw poll

I spent yesterday at the circus known as the Iowa Republican Straw Poll. I've been interested in how the grassroots campaign for Ron Paul has been using the internet to mobilize support. Convincing Iowa voters to vote for Ron Paul at the straw poll would take a tremendous logistical and monetary effort. Did they succeed?

They were guardedly successful. The result of the straw poll were:

Mitt Romney:	4,516	31.6%
Mike Huckabee	2,587	18.1%
Sam Brownback	2,192	15.3%
Tom Tancredo	1,960	13.7%
Ron Paul	1,305	9.1%
Tommy Thompson	1,039	7.3%
Fred Thompson	203	1.4%
Rudy Giuliani	183 1.3%
Duncan Hunter	174	1.2%
John McCain	101	0.7%
John Cox	41	0.3%

Ron Paul spent about a week in Iowa campaigning. That's less than Rudy Giuliani, who has a little over two weeks campaigning in Iowa under his belt. Paul got 9.1% of the vote; Giuliani got 1.3%. The media reports that Giuliani skipped the straw poll, but in reality his name was on the ballot.

The Ron Paul supporters at the straw poll were very vocal, but many of them were from out of state. Because there was a delay in the vote tally, many Ron Paul true believers are screaming fraud. Judging by the number of supporters that were there for Ron Paul versus the other candidates, I believe the vote counts are accurate.

Also, each candidate gave a speech. I listened to speeches by Romney, Tancredo, Paul, Cox and Huckabee. Honestly Paul did not give a very good speech relative to the others. Two possible reasons may be that his wife had been hospitalized that morning, or that he was just excited. But he was not his usual articulate and upbeat self. The people in the arena were more responsive to speeches by Cox and Huckabee. The Ron Paul crowd may not want to believe that, but it's the truth.

Ron Paul's showing was very respectable. But supporters that think he "really got first and the votes were fixed" are living in a fantasyland. The conclusion is: a lot of people do not use the internet, and their votes count just as much as the tech-savvy vote.