The Southern Leadership Conference held a straw poll. Straw polls are a favorite activity at high profile gatherings of party activists, but hold relatively little meaning in the scheme of things. For instance, Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll, yet Ron Paul obviously isn’t going to be the Republican nominee.
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Glenn Beck, a hero of the political right and the closing speaker at a conference of political conservatives here, offered a sweeping denunciation of progressivism on Saturday, calling it a cancer that must be cut out of the nation’s political system.
Mr. Paul, who inspired an intense following when he ran for president in 2008, swept the conference’s presidential straw poll. With 31 percent of the nearly 2,400 votes cast, he finished ahead of Mr. Romney, who won the straw poll last year and captured 22 percent of the vote on Saturday.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, who did not attend the conference, was third, with 7 percent of the vote, and Mr. Pawlenty received 6 percent.
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