Gadfly Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul proves once again that he has the most committed supporters in the field.

Reuters:

Representative Ron Paul easily won a Republican Leadership Conference straw poll of the party's 2012 presidential contenders on Saturday, with former U.S. envoy to China Jon Huntsman finishing second.

Paul, who brought busloads of supporters to the conference, won with 612 votes in the nonbinding preference poll of nearly 2,000 delegates from 38 states who attended the gathering.

Huntsman finished second with 382 votes, Representative Michele Bachmann was third with 191 votes and businessman Herman Cain was fourth with 104 votes.

Huntsman, a former Utah governor, is set announce his bid for the White House on Tuesday.

No other candidate broke triple digits. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who leads national opinion polls in the 2012 Republican race for the nomination to challenge President Barack Obama, was fifth with 74 votes.

"This win is just the latest indicator of how the majority of American opinion is turning in Ron Paul's direction," said Jesse Benton, his campaign.

Seems we've heard this before. In 2008 when Paul was mopping the floor in straw polls at CPAC and other venues, his supporters were insisting that this was but a prelude to a massive move to the Texas congressman in the primaries and caucuses.

For the record, Paul got less than 5% of the primary vote. And he appears mired in low single digits this time around also.