Ron Paul Finishes 5th in Iowa

Ron Paul finished in 5th place in the Ames Iowa Straw Poll. A disappointing finish. I had hoped for at least a top 3 finish.
Everybody knew that Romney would win, with Giuliani and McCain not participating. The surprise of the day was the 2nd place finish of Mike Huckabee from Arkansas with an impressive 18% of the votes cast. I guess Huckabee is now the top candidate of the second tier. Brownback did pretty well too. Here are the results for all involved:

Mitt Romney: 4,516 / 31.5%

Mike Huckabee: 2,587 / 18.1%

Sam Brownback: 2,192 / 15.3%

Tom Tancredo: 1,961 / 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 / 1.0%

John Cox: 41 / .1%

14,302 Total Votes

26,000 Total Tickets Sold

Tommy Thompson has dropped out of the race based on the Ames results.

Here is an account of the event by Reason Magazine's David Wiegal. It sounds like the Paul supporters at the event weren't disappointed as much as I am, and it sounds like Ron Paul is still in it for the long haul. I am glad of that because he will still be able to inject his ideas into the debates, and force discussion on topics that will otherwise get short shrift from the other candidates. Sensibly ending the war in Iraq, and restoration of civil liberties at home being two issues where he flies directly in the face of everyone else.
I hope this showing doesn't finish him off in the eyes of the media, since he finished only slightly ahead of Tommy Thompson. Paul's is the only standout message the Republicans have, and as I have noted before, his nomination is certainly the only way the Republicans can get my vote. I might have to seriously start investigating the Libertarian candidates for President soon.