For the record, I stuck to my guns last night at the precinct caucuses and cast my straw poll vote for Newt Gingrich (he actually won 21% of the votes in our precinct which went 9 Paul 7 Santorum 7 Romney and 6 Gingrich). Given the way things played out in our state and Colorado and Missouri, it seems increasingly likely that the final nail has been put into the Gingrich campaign's coffin. Newt's been written off for dead before of course, but its hard to see how he possibly can recover at this stage.
While I didn't join many of my fellow Anybody But Romney travelers and support Rick Santorum, I'm encouraged that Minnesota caucus goers put him at the top of the straw poll (unbinding of course). It would have been easy to roll over and accept the inevitability of Mitt Romney. The fact that voters in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado did not shows that there are still have serious concerns about Romney's candidacy among hardcore Republicans and Romney is going to have do a much better job alleviating them than he has so far.
One thing that should be noted from last night's results in Minnesota is that it's likely that Paul and Romney support among delegates elected to the local BPOU conventions is much stronger than their showing in the straw poll. It remains to be seen whether this will matter or not in the long run, but if the race stays close and isn't concluded in the near future, it certainly could.
