I'm not sure if this is correct, but another freeper was saying that Hunter was the only one not to use funds to directly campaign for this straw poll.
That's probably true, because I don't think Hunter has a lot of campaign money on hand. This is likely to get some more, though.
It's not hard to observe that the support for Hunter is strong among those who support him. They almost seem desperate to support him. I'm sure nearly every Hunter supporter in the county turned out in order to make a statement. I don't think anyone here, even the most ardent Hunter supporter, would argue that Hunter is polling first or second among South Carolina voters as a whole.
The results of this straw poll are only important in that they can be used for campaign propaganda purposes. Rudy supporters could equally argue that the assertion that he can't win in the South are now obviously false.
I'd argue that the whole thing is as bogus as extrapolating an FR poll and saying it reflects the country as a whole. It doesn't. It doesn't even reflect conservatives as a whole.
He didn't have to. He had Spartanburg's textile billionaire protectionist Roger Milliken to help out (since Milliken didn't have Ralph Nader to support this year).