Romney By A Nose In Iowa

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeIf there's one bad habit that Iowans have learned from Minnesotans, it's having elections that are decided by only a few votes.  Mitt Romney won the Iowa Republican caucus Tuesday by a mere eight votes over Rick Santorum.  Libertarian Ron Paul finished third.  Since these three split more than 70 percent of the vote, all of them claimed victory.  No recount is planned, so far as we know.

Romney did very well for someone who didn't campaign much in Iowa until the final few weeks.  Santorum appealed to the Christian conservatives who thought he had a lot less baggage than the other guys did.  And Paul was treated like a political rock star by the youth of the Hawkeye state, but his views are considered too "out there" by the GOP mainstream.

Let's talk about Santorum for a moment.  Until now, the former Pennsylvania senator had been ignored by most of the media, bloggers (including this one) and the other candidates.  But in the spinning wheel of political fortune that's been this campaign so far, Santorum's number just came up.  Now he'll be perused not just for his conservative views, but also for various allegations of ethical impropriety while he was in the Senate.

As for the also-rans, Newt Gingrich was done in by negative TV ads produced by pro-Romney PACs that played all over Iowa.  Gingrich is also proving to be a bitter old man when he called Romney a "liar" on TV.  Governor Rick Perry went back to Texas to reassess his campaign, only to continue it a few hours later.  And Michele Bachmann has called it quits.

The Minnesota congresswoman was hoping for a miracle in her native Iowa, but she finished dead last.  Bachmann's campaign, which flowered when she won the state straw poll back in August, had wilted the moment fellow Tea Party favorite Perry entered the race.  She had become better known for screwing up her facts than for having any ideas outside wanting to make Barack Obama a One. Term. President.  Her staff ditched out in droves.  The real miracle was that Bachmann lasted this long.  Now her political future is in question.

The circus moves on to New Hampshire, where Romney's a near-lock to win there, considering he used to be governor of next-door Massachusetts.  Things might get more interesting after that in South Carolina, where Gingrich, Santorum and Perry should do better with a more conservative electorate