formerly announced his bid for the Presidency in South Carolina and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a nemesis of Bachmann, bowed out after a fairly strong third place showing....must have ran out of money.
Bachmann, a Congresswomen from Minnesota, narrowly beat Texas Congressman Ron Paul to win the nonbinding mock election, giving her both a fund raising advantage and an emotional victory in Bachmann's birthplace.
Bachmann won with 29 percent of the vote. Paul, was a close second with 28 percent, while Pawlenty had 14 percent.
Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, from Pennsylvania, was fourth, businessman Herman Cain came in fifth, and Rick Perry was sixth. Perry finished with 3.6 percent of the vote even though he was not on the ballot. That was more than Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who was on the ballot but did not participate in the poll. He finished seventh.
With a national straw poll conducted just after the results of Iowa were announced, the results were somewhat different:
Ron Paul 29%
Mitt Romney 20%
Michele Bachmann 18%
Herman Cain 14%
Newt Gingrich 8%
Jon Huntsman 6%
Rick Santorum 3%
Tim Pawlenty 3%
These were surprising to me after the National televised debate where Ron Paul seemingly shot himself in the foot with his un-educated views on the World, particularly the Islamic terrorist threat, and his whiny rant on Iran not being a threat. I know, I know, you watched it too and you said "What?!?!?".
