CPAC Straw Poll

I'm one to say that it's ridiculous to pay attention to straw polls and to try and say who's going to get a party's nomination this far out from 2008, but here are the results from CPAC anyway:

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney won the most support for the Republican presidential nomination in a straw poll of GOP activists attending an annual conference.

Despite his record of inconsistency on some social issues, the former Massachusetts governor got 21 percent of the 1,705 votes cast by paid registrants to the three-day Conservative Political Action Conference. They were asked who their first choice would be for the Republican nomination.

Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose moderate stances on social issues irks the party's right wing, was second with 17 percent.

Both were among the more than half-dozen White House hopefuls who spoke at the conference.

Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who rounds out the top tier of serious GOP contenders, skipped the event — and was punished for it. He got only 12 percent of the vote.

Ahead of him were Romney, Giuliani and two others. Sen. Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) of Kansas, a favorite of religious conservatives, got 15 percent, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, who says he won't decide whether to run until the fall, got 14 percent.

It's nice to see McCain at the bottom where he belongs. It really is fascinating to watch his campaign completely self-destruct in front of our eyes. It's also nice to see that Sen. Brownback was able to make it into the top three (although barely beating a candidate that's not even a candidate yet.)

***Update, 9:46pm***

For those of you who want the numbers without having to read an article:

Mitt Romney 21%
Rudy Giuliani 17%.
Sam Brownback 15%
Newt Gingrich 14%
John McCain, 12%