Romney Tops Santorum in Iowa by Eight Votes

Poor showings from Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich throw their campaigns into question.

Update: Congresswoman Michele Bachman has announced that she's suspending her campaign after her less-than-stellar showing in the Iowa caucuses. The darling of the Tea Party says she has no regrets about running the campaign, except for maybe that time when she said that the Founding Fathers abolished slavery. Or that her husband runs a pray-the-gay-away counselling firm. But beyond that, nope! No regrets!

Mitt Romney has emerged as the victor in the Iowa caucuses, edging out former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum by just eight votes. Ron Paul, the delightfully cranky libertarian congressman from Texas, came in third, while Newt Gingrich took fourth and Texas Gov. Rick Perry came in a disappointing fifth, leading him to say he's going to "assess" his campaign (code for examining how to throw in the towel while saving as much face as possible). All told, 122,000 votes were cast across the Hawkeye state, with 30,015 going to Romney and 30,007 going to Santorum, who's emerged in recent weeks as the leading social conservative candidate after flame outs from the campaigns of Michele Bachmann and Perry. As for what this means for upcoming Republican party showdowns, well, just remember that the Iowa caucuses are made up of just about the least representative segment of the American population (overwhelmingly white, old, and Christian). So if a supposed Republican-in-name-only like Romney performs that well in Iowa, then we're willing to call him the undisputed front-runner at this point. The dogfight continues next Tuesday with the New Hampshire primary, followed by the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21.