John Thune's comments following his 2% showing at CPAC bring to mind Rule #329 of Presidential Politics: If it takes you longer to explain why a straw poll should be ignored than it took to count the votes for you in the straw poll itself, you're losing.
Thune, who says he will make the decision on running for president by the end of the month, came in 10th at 2 percent. He tied with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.Shorter John Thune: my inability to navigate political conferences is evidence that others are better presidential candidates than me.
When respondents were asked to list only their top two choices, Thune came in 11th at 5 percent.
Thune told the Argus Leader on Tuesday that he's not dismayed by the findings, which he thinks were "engineered" by supporters of certain candidates. Scores of Paul supporters, for example, could be seen packing the conference, and few political experts give the libertarian-leaning congressman much a chance of winning the GOP nomination.
"I think that poll is receiving less and less credibility and legitimacy because it's engineered by people who ship folks in for that," Thune said.
Also, Thune pointed out that ballots had to be submitted by Friday afternoon, about the time the senator was on the CPAC stage giving a speech, so many of them probably were cast before people had a chance to hear him.
"The more important issue is the overall reception you get in response to your message," Thune said of his CPAC appearance. Former Alaska Gov. "Sarah Palin got 3 (percent), so I don't think that is a very good metric to go by. But getting the chance to get in front of that audience and see how it responds, that's an important part of the process."
Look if you have to make the case in the press that you're more relevant than the activist base thinks you are, you're probably Bill Richardson. Which is to say, you're not going to be the contender that you should be based on Beltway Conventional Wisdom. Of course, Conventional Wisdom is often wrong, though learning this can be hard for people who are making decisions based on what they hear over cocktails at The Palm.