Mitt Romney at CPAC, originally uploaded by Rob Bluey.

Mitt Romney and his supporters swept into Washington this week and won a crucial victory in this year’s CPAC straw poll — a boost that confirms his standing as a top-tier candidate with a superior organization.

The anti-Romney faction is already dismissing the victory because Romney bussed supporters to CPAC from Michigan and Massachusetts. But his critics shouldn’t attack him for such tactics. Rather, it proves that Romney has a tremendous organization, which says something about his chances in the Iowa caucuses next year.

The top five vote-getters were as follows (click here for complete results):

Mitt Romney 21%
Rudy Giuliani 17%
Sam Brownback 15%
Newt Gingrich 14%
John McCain 12%

Giuliani’s performance was probably helped by his appearance, but his failure to address red-meat issues in his speech left CPAC attendees disappointed and could have contributed to his second-place showing. Although liberal Republicans are already saying Giuliani is the real winner, I beg to differ. Giuliani finished in first place in the 2005 straw poll, and despite falling to third in the 2006 straw poll, he’s always been popular among this crowd.

Meanwhile, Sam Brownback continued to distance himself from the second-tier candidates with a strong third-place finish. Just a day after finishing fourth in the South Carolina straw poll, Brownback now has back-to-back finishes that no one expected. As I reported earlier, Brownback supporters outnumbered the other candidates’.

Rounding out the top five were Newt Gingrich and John McCain. Gingrich improved markedly from last year, when he finished with 5%. McCain, on the other hand, dropped from 20% last year to 12% this year. Had he taken the time to show up, I’m certain that his numbers would have been on par with Giuliani’s.