Iowa Caucus Results: Big Win (tie) for Santorum - Perry & Gingrich Alive - Romney Flat - Paul Competing

Rick Santorum had a huge victory in the Iowa Caucus. He came within 8 votes of beating Romney out for first place. This 25% tie (almost a win) will give Santorum the media attention he needs to compete in future Primaries and Caucuses. Romney and Santorum share the delegates from Iowa with Romney getting 13 and Santorum getting 12. It really is a joke to think that these early primaries and caucuses can carry so much weight. The winner only gets 13 delegates! It takes over 1000 delegates to win the nomination!

There is a long race ahead and I sure hope the media does not conclude who the winner is until after all the states have voted and someone has the over 1000 delegates needed to win. 13 votes means nothing and yet it is silly how much hype that Iowa and these other early states get.

The hype will help Santorum get more exposure and money so that is good for him. Romney comes out bad in this deal because he could not win. As other conservative candidates drop out we will see Romney's numbers stay about the same and some other candidate's numbers go up because there is clearly a large section of "anyone but Romney" voters.

Perry is still very alive after this Iowa Caucus. The winner only got 25% and there were 5 candidates that got in the double digits. Perry ended up with 11%. That shows that the voters are very split between candidates. Perry has lots of money that he can spend on future races. All it takes for Perry to turn the corner is for Perry to survive until some of the big states. By then, some of the other candidates might have dropped out so those candidate's votes could go to Perry as the anti-Romney or anti-Paul candidate. For instance, Texas has a later Primary thanks to the Activist Judges trying to take over redistricting. Many of the states voting before Texas will have half of their delegates taken away because they did not follow RNC rules. If the candidates keep splitting the votes in the early, low population State Primaries, then a big win in a place like Texas could drastically change the race because of the amount of delegates that Texas has.

Ron Paul showed that he is getting more votes than just his base with 22%. Quite frankly, people are getting sick and tired of the status quo and so more and more people are thinking that a drastic change is what is needed. Ron Paul will probably be in the race for a while and he certainly cannot be ruled out.

Newt Gingrich is in the same boat as Perry, except without the money that Perry has. Newt got 14 percent and he could be a guy that people turn to in order to get away from Paul or Romney. That is if Gingrich lasts that long.

Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman both got single digits. I guess it is too early to rule anyone completely out, but with little money to get their message out they might not make it very long into the next few months.