The first Morning Jolt of the week offers a bit on the oddity in the vote-counting of the Maine caucus; a report on, er, a greatly-analyzed film from a long time ago and far far away, and of course, the news out of CPAC…

Romney Wins CPAC Straw Poll! No, Really.
No kidding: “Mitt Romney won The Washington Times/CPAC Presidential Straw Poll on Saturday, and also nipped Rick Santorum as the top choice of conservatives nationwide, according to a new version of the poll conducted for the first time this year that suggests Mr. Romney retains strong support among self-identified conservatives. Mr. Romney won 38 percent of the straw poll, which counted the votes of 3,408 activists gathered for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which ran from Thursday through Saturday at a hotel in Washington. Mr. Santorum was second with 31 percent, Newt Gingrich was third with 15 percent and Rep. Ron Paul was fourth with 12 percent — far below his showing the last two years, when he won with 31 in 2010 and 30 percent in 2011.”
Apparently Rick Santorum thinks something smells:
Rick Santorum suggested on Sunday that Mitt Romney’s campaign may have rigged a straw poll of conservative activists by paying the entrance fee for supporters.
Romney beat Santorum by 7 points Saturday in a straw poll of almost 3,500 attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Santorum pointed out that Ron Paul had won the poll in both of the past two years “because he just trucks in a lot of people pays for their ticket, they come in and vote and then leave.”
“I don’t try to rig straw polls,” Santorum said on CNN’s State of the Union.
Paul actually came in last on Saturday, having declined to address the conference or to activate his base for the straw poll. But Santorum said that wasn’t the case with Romney.
“You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought,” Santorum said. “We’ve heard all sorts of things.”
W. James Antle III, writing at the American Spectator, calls it “the standard complaint of candidates who lose such contests… It’s impressive when someone can do as well as Santorum did at CPAC without spending much money. But the ability of a campaign organization to identify supporters and turn them out to vote is precisely what large straw polls measure. Romney beat Santorum fair and square.”
One of my co-panelists, Ed Morrissey, calls himself ‘severely surprised’ and adds, “The big surprise, though, was Gingrich’s poor showing. He also has resource issues now, but CPAC is his crowd. Normally one would expect Gingrich to score better at this particular conference, especially after a very good speech yesterday. A distant third was not the result the Gingrich team would have wanted for the story line out of CPAC. Gingrich does a little better in the Washington Times’ national poll at 20%, but still trails both Romney (27%) and Santorum (25%).”