(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, on Saturday won a straw poll for president on the final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. He got 31 percent of the vote. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who won the straw poll the past three years, was second with 22 percent and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin with 7 percent.
The straw poll provides an early window into who conservative activists believe should be the next GOP nominee.
The three-day meeting Saturday that has featured speeches by Republican leaders, training sessions for local political activists and a renewed purpose to stand firm behind their principles heading into the midterm elections.
In the first two days, speakers at CPAC played up voter frustrations and predicted a comeback for the GOP, a little more than a year after suffering political losses.
U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana made no apologies for trying to stop President Obama's agenda in Congress, telling attendees that he proudly wears the "Party of No" label that Democrats have tried to pin on Republicans.
"Some folks like to call us the 'Party of No,'" Pence said during his speech Friday. "Well, I say 'No' is way underrated here in Washington, D.C. Sometimes 'No' is just what this town needs to hear."
On Saturday, attendees will hear from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and a host of conservative luminaries. The conference will close with the results of a 2012 presidential straw poll and an address by conservative commentator Glenn Beck.
Pence, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, used his address to the influential bloc of GOP base voters to promote his conservative credentials further and sharply criticize the president and the congressional Democratic majority.
Pence, who is chairman of the House Republican Conference, predicted the GOP would reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives in November and the White House in 2012.
"Welcome to the conservative comeback and the beginning of the end of the Pelosi Congress," Pence said to applause.
The congressman from Indiana is one of several Republicans said to be eyeing a White House bid who addressed the meeting.
Romney spoke Thursday, the opening day of this annual meeting, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty preceded Pence on Friday morning. Paul spoke Friday afternoon, while Santorum and Gingrich are scheduled to appear on the closing day.
Paul ignited the crowd with a scorching indictment of lawmakers in Washington, whom he accused of failing to address the nation's growing debt.
"Debt is the monster," Paul said, condemning federal borrowing to support government spending. "Debt is what will eat us up, and that's why our economy is on the brink."
Particular attention was paid to not only what these potential presidential candidates said, but how their comments were received by the attendees.
Unlike Romney, who delivered a polished, rousing speech to the conservative audience, Pawlenty opted to speak without a teleprompter and riff off his notes.
Having drawn an early time slot for his speech, Pawlenty spoke to a relatively low-energy crowd in a ballroom with scores of empty seats.
"When we were here a year ago at CPAC, there were a lot of naysayers," Pawlenty said Friday.
"We had all these pundits and smart alecks saying the sun was setting on the conservative movement. ... We had people talking about how the new era of hope and change was sweeping aside our values and principles. Hope and change and teleprompter," he said.
U.S. Rep. Steve King of Iowa followed Pawlenty and fired up the crowd by declaring that Obama has "lost his mojo."
"He had more mojo than any president that I remember when he was inaugurated a year and a month ago. But now, the master-mesmerizer has lost his mojo," King said. "And if we stand our ground as constitutional conservatives, he's not going to get it back."
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota blasted Obama's economic policies Friday, and declared that the president is leading America into a state of "decline."
During her speech, Bachmann also took aim at Democratic efforts at health care reform and cap-and-trade policies designed to combat global warming, saying such measures will keep the U.S. economy on "an unsustainable path."
The CPAC conference follows a meeting of "Tea Party" activists that took place earlier in February in Nashville, Tennessee. Followers of the Tea Party movement express independence from the national Republican Party, but a CNN Opinion Research Corp. poll shows that these activists would vote overwhelmingly Republican in a two-party race for Congress.
Tea Party Movement activists held a late afternoon reception for attendees that featured patriotic songs, hors d'oeuvres and an open bar.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke out Thursday about the conservative grassroots movement that emerged in the past year out of concerns about certain policy issues and gridlock in Washington.
"The Republican Party should not attempt to co-opt the tea parties," Boehner said. "I think that's the dumbest thing in the world. What we will do, as long as I'm the leader, is respect them, listen to them and walk amongst them. The other party will never, ever do that."
Other opening-day speakers included former Vice President Dick Cheney, Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio.
Conservatives were in a different mind-set a year ago. At the 2009 conference, the Republican Party was still reeling from Obama's victory over Sen. John McCain as well as the additional gains Democrats made in Congress in 2008.
But in the past 12 months, Republicans have seen the political tide turn: Obama's approval rating has dropped below 50 percent, several congressional Democrats have announced they will retire at the end of the year and Brown took the seat once occupied by Sen. Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion of Massachusetts for more than four decades.
