In the Aftermath of Iowa

Mitt Romney emerged with a narrow 8-vote win from the Iowa caucuses over second-place finisher Rick Santorum. Yes, that's 8 votes out of more than 120,000 cast (30,015-30,008). Still think your vote doesn't count?

While Santorum did perform better than had been expected until just recently, I don't see how that success is going to translate into winning the nomination. Unless it's the nomination in 2060, which would give him enough time to campaign for a year in each state, the strategy he pursued to win Iowa.

In the wake of his disappointing fifth-place finish former front-runner Rick Perry announced he was returning to Texas to "reassess" his campaign. Normally this is code for ending it. But Perry responded today with a tweet indicating that he was going to stay in the race,

And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State...Here we come South Carolina!!! http://yfrog.com/odz8ujrj

Michele Bachmann, another former front-runner, decided to throw in the towel, however. Bachmann, who was born in Iowa and had won the Ames Straw Poll on the day Perry announced his candidacy, finished in sixth place. She garnered a mere 1200 more votes in last night's caucus than she had in the Ames Straw Poll that had 100,000 fewer voters.

Herman Cain, who suspended his campaign last month, still collected a few votes and snagged eighth place, finishing about 4600 votes closer to seventh-place Jon Huntsman than Huntsman did to Bachmann.

Ron Paul attracted enough non-Republican voters to the Republican caucus to finish third. Newt Gingrich, the object of negative ads by several opponents, took fourth.

Now it's on to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Oh, and then Nevada, the Afterthought State. By the time our caucus rolls around it will be Romney, one - maybe two - others, and Ron Paul left.