SUNRIVER, Ore. -- New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton may be leading in national polls, but among Oregon's Democratic faithful, she's running a distant third to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards.

Obama won a straw poll Saturday taken among attendees of the Democrats' biennial retreat at the Sunriver resort. He picked up 49 votes, just edging out Edwards, who finished with 47 votes. Clinton came in third, with 36 votes out of about 175 votes cast. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson followed with 12 votes and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich had 10.

Obama and Edwards have made campaign stops in Oregon, and Clinton has yet to visit. The state has voted for the Democratic candidate in the past five presidential elections, but by relatively narrow margins.

Though it is a small sample size, straw polls like the one at Sunriver can be a telling test of a candidate's strength among the party's base, those who will volunteer to knock on doors, work the phones and donate money.

In other contested Democratic matchups, House Speaker Jeff Merkley, D-Portland, easily beat Portland lawyer and activist Steve Novick, with 103 votes to Novick's 50. Both are seeking the Democratic nomination to run against U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Pendleton.

The race to succeed retiring attorney general Hardy Myers could be a close one, if the straw poll holds true. Rep. Greg Macpherson, D-Lake Oswego, garnered 76 votes, to 73 for John Kroger, a law professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland. The Republicans have not yet announced a candidate for that race.

In the race to be the party's nominee for Secretary of State, former Senate Majority Leader Kate Brown, D-Portland, looks to be off to a fast start over two of her Senate colleagues, Vicki Walker of Eugene and Brad Avakian of the Portland suburbs. Brown got 89 of the votes cast in the Sunriver straw poll, to 49 for Avakian and 20 for Walker.