The Votes Are In: The Official Tea Party Leader is Ron Paul

The Tea Party movement has cast a loud and resounding vote for change within the Republican Party earlier today when Ron Paul won the Conservative Political Action Conference's 2010 Straw Poll. Ron Paul's received 31% of the vote, better than Mitt Romney (22%) and Sarah Palin (7%) combined. Romney had been the winner of the last three CPAC polls and had many cheers after the vote; while Palin is being cultivated by many in the mainstream media as the unofficial leader of the upstart Tea Party movement.

The reaction from the audience to the straw poll results was mixed and there were many boos when Ron Paul's name was called. Longtime CPAC pollster and presenter, Tony Fabrizio, seemed to cater to the booing members of the crowd by stating that 53% of the voters were not satisfied with the crop of likely candidates.

However, the presenter stated a few slides earlier that this year's straw poll saw the biggest turnout in CPAC history. Nearly 2400 votes were cast, almost 40% more than the previous year, which was then a CPAC record. He later followed that all 50 states and Washington DC were represented in the vote count - about twice as many states that are typically represented at CPAC. He also went on to say that 54% of the voters fell into the 18-25 age bracket. Another 20% of the voters fell into the 26-40 age bracket.

These results suggest that Ron Paul, the overwhelming winner, yet the oldest candidate in the field, is more effectively striking a chord with a broader and younger segment of the population than any of the other Republican candidates. To the entrenched GOP leadership, many of whom have recently shifted their rhetoric so that is more appealing to the growing Tea Party, Ron Paul's CPAC straw poll victory is a blow to the gut and a wake-up call.