Washington ? Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback on Monday vowed to keep his presidential campaign going through the Iowa caucuses this winter, despite his third place finish in the Republicans’ weekend straw poll.

“We invested heavily in the straw poll to get a top three finish and we got a top three finish,” Brownback said Monday. “Certainly a lower finish would have been very harmful to us continuing the race.”

Brownback came in behind surprise runner-up Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, who is competing for the same block of conservative values voters. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney easily won the straw poll.

Republican strategist Scott Reed said Brownback deserves credit for being aggressive, but faces a challenge in putting a positive spin on his third place finish.

“The straw vote and the caucus give only two campaigns a ticket out: the winner and the campaign that exceeds expectations,” said Reed, who managed Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. “Brownback came up short on both of those in the straw vote, so he has to double down to show he can raise the money and go the distance.”

Brownback plans to distinguish his record from Huckabee and Romney by focusing on his foreign policy experience as a former member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one-time chairman of the Middle East subcommittee.

“We’ll be emphasizing more foreign policy because I do believe the next president should go in and not need on-the-job training,” Brownback said.

Brownback was visiting new Hampshire on Monday and planned to campaign in South Carolina today through Thursday to “capture the momentum” from the straw poll.

Romney won 31.5 percent of the vote, while Huckabee had 18.1 percent and Brownback won 15.3 percent.

“We’re right in the hunt, it’s a victory for us,” Brownback said. “If you’ve watched our poll numbers in Iowa, it’s been a long push for us to get those up.”