Mitt Romney is Winner of Iowa Caucus by 8 Votes

Iowa caucus officials reached a decided “final count” in the Iowa caucuses early Wednesday morning, announcing Mitt Romney as the winner, besting Rick Santorum by only 8 votes. Final tallies came in at 30,015 for Romney, and 30,007 for Santorum. As the caucus utilizes proportional representation, the top three share the spoils, with 8 delegates each going to Romney and Santorum, and 7 going to Ron Paul. The momentum of the win is largely symbolic as an indicator of the future winner. The Iowa caucuses didn’t matter last week when Ron Paul was projected to win, but now it signals Romney’s shift towards the nomination, as well as the dramatic, sudden rise of Rick Santorum into a near-tie second – a momentum in Iowa so sudden the polls failed to capture it. You can guarantee that the media will find significance in Iowa now that Santorum and Romney reached a virtual tie, with Mitt narrowly edging ahead by a narrow and conspicuous 8 votes for a win. [Source]



Ron Paul “We Don’t Need To Invade Anymore Countries Or Start Any More Wars”

Iowa Results: Did the GOP Establishment Sabotage Ron Paul as It Vowed to Do?

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” - Joseph Stalin

January 3, 2012

Infowars.com - UPDATE 1:46 AM CENTRAL: Mitt Romney has now been announced as the winner of the Iowa caucus, dramatically leading Rick Santorum by only 8 votes.

The two candidates have wrestled back-and-forth for first as various locales checked in with GOP officials– who moved today to meet at an undisclosed location to count the votes in secret after the hacker collective Anonymous issued threats to disrupt the caucus.

Ron Paul at a close third with 21%, conceded the race calling himself ‘one of the three winners,’ and dubbed his performance ‘nothing to be ashamed of’. After all, he led polls for months leading into the contest, under heavy fire from media hacks aligned with the GOP establishment ever-eager to dismiss his viability. Paul vowed to fight on, continue raising funds and fighting for victory in what he termed a movement, rather than a campaign.

Santorum’s surprise last-minute surge coincides with announcements that the vote in Iowa would be counted at a secret location– yes, vague threats from hacker collective Anonymous gave the pretext to count the votes in secret– and also coincided with statements from top GOP officials strategizing how to effectively take out Ron Paul and diminish his significance.

It is no secret that all the stops have been pulled to minimize Paul’s media visibility throughout the campaign trail, with many top GOP figures and media commentators going so far as to pre-script a plan to ignore Iowa in the event that Ron Paul won the caucuses, in order to prevent the Congressman from dominating the national stage.

Did the GOP establishment succeed in sabotaging Ron Paul in the Iowa caucus vote as it vowed to do?

What accounts for Santorum’s swift rise to the top of polls in Iowa only days out from the contest when he barely showed a pulse in ANY state, let alone Iowa, among the crowded GOP field at any time in the weeks and months before?

The Des Moines Register poll from ONLY two days ago showed Santorum at 15%– a distant third that itself marked a spectacular improvement from a campaign that struggled to even stand out among the ‘second tier’ of GOP candidates. Both Paul and Romney have consistently ranked in the top three in polls for Iowa for some time– many of which led into Iowa with Ron Paul at No. 1 and nearly all others showing him nearly certain for first or second place.

A CNN report from six days ago highlights Santorum’s rise to 16% in polls from only 5% at the beginning of December– similar to numbers he’s had through the campaign, as in this Dec. 20 poll. Public Policy Polling notes Santorum at only 10% during Dec. 26-27. So how did he rise so quickly?

Whatever the answer, for the so-called “mainstream” corporate-owned media who dominate news wires and cable television (but must now combat the rise of Internet journalism), it will be enough to justify ignoring Ron Paul and keeping him out of the headlines in hopes of sinking the entire campaign before it catches on at a truly national level.

2008 GOP running mate Sarah Palin surprisingly warned against the GOP trying to marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters after the third place finish.

“The GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul and his supporters after this, because Ron Paul and his supporters understand that a lot of Americans are war-weary, and we are broke. And he has reached these constituencies who are very concerned about the solvency of the U.S., and he has proposed solutions with the austerity measures he’d like to see implemented. So the GOP had better listen to what these Ron Paul supporters are saying– they’d better work with them,” Palin told Fox News.

A GOP insider revealed a deal to swing votes away from Ron Paul in Iowa today, raising eyebrows and questions about validity of this oh-so-close caucus vote that leads the 2012 primary vote.