Ron Paul Third In Texas Straw Poll

Ron Paul came in third in the Texas GOP’s Straw poll yesterday:

FORT WORTH, Sept. 1 — Rep. Duncan Hunter (Calif.) won Texas’s first Republican Party straw poll on Saturday in a low-turnout event that lacked the top-tier presidential candidates.

Hunter got 534 votes, or 41 percent of the total. Former senator and actor Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), who is expected to announce his candidacy next week but was not at the event, came in second with 266 votes, or nearly 21 percent. Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) came in third with 217 votes, or 17 percent.

No other candidate received as much as 7 percent of the 1,300 votes.

The Texas straw poll is only for party activists, and those casting ballots must have been a delegate or alternate in a recent GOP state or national convention. Last month’s Iowa Republican straw poll, which former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won, was open to any voter who paid for a ticket.

A respectable showing, especially considering the fact that Texas limits participation to people who’ve been actively involved in the part in the recent past, but all of the campaigns in the top three should remember that none of the leading candidates —- Giuliani, Romney, McCain —- appeared for the event or, it would seem, actively participated, so it’s unclear that these results mean anything one way or the other.