Did Rick Santorum actually win Iowa? And does it even matter?

The Washington Post ^ | 01/18/2012 | Aaron Blake

[Rational Thought]

The Iowa Republican Party will announce the official winner of its Jan. 3 caucuses on Thursday morning, and Rick Santorum is holding out hope that he’s eight-vote loss will suddenly become a win.

But does it even matter?

In a word, yes. But there’s also little reason to believe it would recast the Republican presidential race in any major way.

With the official announcement set for 9:15 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, news that Santorum actually won the first-in-the-nation contest would surely be seized upon by the former Pennsylvania senator’s campaign as proof of its momentum and to call into question Mitt Romney’s inevitability as the GOP nominee.

But you can’t un-ring a bell

[Rational Thought]

One fact which cannot be ignored regardless of the outcome is how the media (led by Fox News) has manipulated the public in support of Romney.

For the past couple of weeks, Fox News has been calling Romney "the big winner in Iowa", without even knowing the actual outcome, leading to their conclusion that Romney is inevitable. Yet, now there's a good probability that Santorum will end up the winner.

If the certification reflects a Santorum victory, will Fox and other media outlets be issuing retractions for all their inaccurate facts in stories about Iowa?

Maybe the better question for Fox News, is this type of reporting what "Fair and Balanced" means?

[Parley Baer]

At this point in time only if it helps to stop Mitt. Now that we are in South Carolina Newt needs the votes to stop Mitt.

[BenKenobi]

Good to know nobody cares for the truth.

Glad I’m vindicated.

[No!]

an article like this makes me think the leak is Mitt LOST!

Whaddya mean does it matter!

lol

Don’t you hate being played by all sides?

disgusting...

[Only1choice____Freedom]

It does not matter that Santorum won as much as if Romney lost.

The Romney campaign has been playing it like a big victory but if he loses the delegates at this point in the game, it can make him look like a loser more than Rick a winner.

But then again, isn’t that what it’s all about?

[Question Liberal Authority]

If Santorum wanted to stop Romneymentum, he should have doing this since the night of the election. Any time someone called Mitt the winner of Iowa, dispute the fact as unproven, and call it a "tie" at best.

As it is, it's a 2 week old story. I don't see how he can hope to get any Santorumentum out of it.

[throwback]

Like Mitt's claim to have created 100k jobs, it will be nice to see his “won every state so far” disappear from the airwaves. Small consolation, but still nice to hear.

[Rational Thought]

Yes, a 2 week old story that may have been based upon a lie.

I guess what this proves is facts are unimportant. What is truly important is the perception created by the media, facts be damned.

[WestSylvanian]

What took this idiots so long to do a recount? What were they doing, counting on their fingers and toes? All of the MSM reports had Romney doing the unprecedented—winning both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. He won New Hampshire because he’s lived there for years and spent millions on advertising. Santorum won Iowa. He doesn’t live there and he spent a fraction of the amount Romney did. He spent far less than Gingrich and he beat Gingrich.

There’s one frontrunner here and his name is Rick Santorum. It’s about time the news media, the RNC, Romney backers, and Newt backers realized it.

[MestaMachine]

Cut through the fog and get to the heart of he matter. The TRUTH is Santorum would not, could not have ‘won’ Iowa and neither could romney IF romney hadn’t spent millions lying about Newt Gingrich. Santorum owes his ‘win’ or second place spot to mitt romney, not to anything he did. Some of you might not like it, but facts is facts. Santorum was my guy until he started acting like romney and dissing Gingrich rather than offer his own response to romney. This never should have happened.
Now that romney has repaid his kindness by going all out negative on Santorum, Santorum cries foul. Karma is bitch. And Rick lost me when he cried FOR romney and dissed Gingrich, yet has the audacity to place an ad with Newt sitting on the couch with pelosi as if none of us have ever seen it before. This is a side of Santorum that should have best stayed out of sight.
Gingrich didn’t go behind Rick’s back to ask him to step aside. He was pretty open and up front about it. Shame on Newt for stating the obvious. Santorum could have simply said no. Instead he starts an all out negative attack on Gingrich which can only help romney. I am very disappointed.

[MestaMachine]

“There’s one frontrunner here and his name is Rick Santorum. It’s about time the news media, the RNC, Romney backers, and Newt backers realized it.”

See Post #10 and get the stars out of your eyes. I have defended Rick Santorum for years. No more.

[Free Vulcan]

The county Republican central committees in Iowa have two weeks to certify their numbers by getting in Form E of their caucus packet, which has the tallies of the Presidential Straw Poll. The deadline has always been two weeks.

Any election usually takes a week to certify regardless, but there are 99 counties and 1770 precincts and it’s all volunteer so it doesn’t happen overnite.