Jew World Order

• Romney and Santorum fought for hours before Romney was declared winner
• Santorum says ‘Game on’ as Romney bashes Obama in victory speech
• Ron Paul finishes in third place to complete top tier of Republican candidates
• An emotional Rick Perry decides to ‘reassess’ campaign after coming in fifth
• Doubts raised about whether Michele Bachmann will continue race
• John McCain to back Romney in endorsement that returns 2008 favour

By
Toby Harnden, In Iowa

Last updated at 12:16 PM on 4th January 2012

Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses early this morning by the astonishingly narrow margin of just eight votes as the Republican presidential race got off to a dramatic start.

Former Pennsylvania senator Mr Santorum secured 30,007 votes, while former Massachusetts governor Mr Romney emerged the winner with 30,015 in one of the closest votes in American history.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul came a close third. Mr Santorum, Mr Romney and Mr Paul were neck and neck for much of the night before Mr Paul slipped when results from rural counties came in.

Now that was close: Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, pictured, has emerged the victor in the Iowa caucuses after hours of being deadlocked with former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum

Dark horse: Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (pictured with his wife Karen, left), whose campaign has been surging in recent weeks, was deadlocked with Mitt Romney

With the question of who actually won
mattering little, both surprise dark horse Mr Santorum and long-time favourite Mr Romney go to New Hampshire – which votes next
Tuesday – in good heart.

In a powerful speech in Johnson,
Iowa, Mr Santorum, who mostly campaigned in the state in a pick-up truck
with an entourage of one, told his supporters: ‘Game on!’

‘Thank you so much, Iowa, for standing up and not compromising, by standing up and being bold,’ he added. ‘You have taken the first step toward taking back this country.’

Mr Romney, who holds a double-digit poll
lead in New Hampshire, congratulated his rival at a rally in Des Moines and then immediately
attacked President Barack Obama – the man they are vying to face in
November’s general election.

‘The gap between his promises four
years ago and his performance is as great as anything I’ve seen in my
life,’ Mr Romney said. ‘We’re going to change the
White House and get America back on track.’

Frontrunner: Mitt Romney, pictured with his wife Ann, was hoping to ride his momentum into an Iowa win

Husband and wife: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum and his wife Karen share two moments together after the extremely close race against Mitt Romney in Iowa

Mr Santorum’s ascendency was perhaps best noted by Mr Paul, who last night launched a thinly-veiled attack on a rival he had previously ignored.

‘Game on!’

Rick
Santorum’s reaction after establishing himself as a serious contender
by surging from the back of the pack to beat big guns Newt Gingrich and
Ron Paul while being only narrowly defeated by front-runner Mitt Romney.

In Ankeny, Iowa, he
described his third-place position as ‘one of three tickets’ from Iowa
and said his operation was ‘one of two that can actually run a national
campaign and raise the money.’

The libertarian anti-war Mr Paul told Fox News: ‘We will go on, we will raise the money – I have no doubt about the volunteers.’

With the Republican field still confused and voters divided, Democrats argued that the winner of the night was President Obama.

As expected, the big losers of the night were Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann.

The lead that didn’t last: Ron Paul, who scored big among young voters, was leading in entrance polls but later fell to third place behind Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney

Defiant: Texas Rep. Ron Paul and his wife Carol attend his caucus night rally on Tuesday in Ankeny, Iowa

It’s hard to see a rationale for Mrs Bachmann staying in the race after finishing sixth in the state in which
she was born and where she won the Ames Straw poll last August.

CAN SANTORUM WIN?

Game on, indeed! Rick Santorum’s stunning result leaves the chaotic Republican race for the White House with yet another challenger to Mitt Romney.

The surging former Pennsylvania Senator will almost certainly use his narrow eight-vote loss to claim he is the chosen conservative alternative to the long-time frontrunner.

The race has already seen Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich vie for this position – and at times even top GOP polls – before floundering and falling back.

Now the inevitable question arises: can Mr Santorum really win?

With his opposition in disarray, the 53-year-old will seize the opportunity to present his coming from behind as a sign that he has enough vitality to persuade Republicans, who have failed to take Mr Romney into their hearts, that he is the right man to challenge Mr Obama.

His sudden ascendency is certainly startling.
A week ago, Mr Santorum failed to break into double digits in the Iowa polls.

But, after visiting all 99 counties in the state and holding hundreds of campaign events, he finished with 24.54% of the vote – with Romney only narrowly ahead with 24.55%.

To many analysts, Mr Santorum, who couples his social conservative message with an economic populist appeal to jobseeking voters, is seen as the real winner of the Iowa poll.

Outside of Iowa, Mr Santorum has generated some real heat in Republican circles and is increasingly garnering influential support.

Yesterday, media mogul Rupert Murdoch remarked on his newly-opened Twitter page: ‘Can’t resist this tweet, but all Iowans think about Rick Santorum. Only candidate with genuine big vision for country.’

All of this means a national fund-raising surge is sure to follow – and he will grab lots of headlines over the coming days.

But whether the former senator can translate his Iowa success into something bigger remains doubtful.

He faces a reality check when the other candidates take him seriously and faces the kind of attacks that Mr Romney has faces consistently.

He may well end up as the Comedown Kid as soon as next week.

A Suffolk University tracking poll of likely voters in the New Hampshire primary gave him just 3 per cent – putting him in fifth place.

And, unlike Iowa, Mitt Romney is certain to be a strong contender in the state neighbouring Massachusetts.

So the game may well be decided next week.

Asked if Mrs Bachmann would continue, her campaign manager Keith Nahigian said: ‘I don’t know yet. It’s hard to tell.’

But Mrs Bachmann was defiant in her
concession speech insisting there would be ‘many, many more chapters to
be written on the path to our nomination’,

However it’s doubtful whether Mr Gingrich
and Mr Perry will have the organisation and cash to go beyond Florida on
January 31 – or perhaps even South Carolina 10 days earlier.

Mr Perry, who
came fifth, indicated he might drop out of the race, saying he was
returning to Texas to pray and ‘reassess’.

‘We’ll wait and see in the morning what it looks like,’ the Texas Governor said.

Last in the race, Jon Huntsman, a
distinguished former Governor of Utah and Ambassador to China, is almost
certain to drop out of the race, although he chose not to campaign in Iowa.

With the Republican field still
confused and voters divided, Democrats argued that the winner of the
night was the man the candidates wanted to replace in November’s
general election – President Obama.

And the President remained
defiant as he told Iowan supporters: ‘Because of you,
because of all the memories I have of being in your living rooms,
meeting you in a diner or seeing you over in a campaign office, I have
never lost that same source of inspiration that drove me to embark on
this journey in the first place.

‘We’re battling millions of dollars of
negative advertising and lobbyists and special interests who don’t want
to see the change that you worked so hard for to fully take root.

‘And that’s why time this time out is going to be, in some ways, more important than the first time out.’

While the reality of the night is
that this is a fine result for Mr Romney, meeting expectations and media
spin are always important factors. Bill Clinton didn’t win
New Hampshire in 1992 but was still declared the ‘Comeback Kid’.

Certainly,
there will be a press narrative that Mr Romney still can’t get over 25
per cent – his poll ceiling for virtually all of 2011 and his share of
the vote in Iowa in 2008 when he lost by six points to Mike Huckabee.

Iowa has an uneven record when it comes to predicting national winners.

It sent President Obama on his way in 2008, but eventual Republican nominee John McCain finished a distant fourth here.

The
100,000 or so voters in the Republican caucuses are disproportionately
white and more conservative than the overall American electorate.

Unlike
in a primary, in which voting occurs over hours, the Iowa caucuses were
meetings held in schools, churches and other locations where
Republicans gathered for an evening of politics.

Each presidential candidate was entitled
to have a supporter deliver a speech on his or her behalf before straw
ballots were taken.

Going negative: Newt Gingrich (pictured with his wife Callista, right) once vowed to carry on a positive campaign, but seems to be going back on his word, with sharp attacks on Mitt Romney

Not looking good: Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry would have both been hoping to have had a better showing

Bowing out? After his lackluster showing in Iowa, an emotional Rick Perry said he would head back to Texas to ‘reassess’ his campaign

But this might be an occasion when perceptions are not everything in politics.

The
most important thing could be that the two potentially nationally-viable
opponents for  Mr Romney – Mr Gingrich and Mr Perry – will be very badly damaged.

‘We will go on, we will raise the money – I have no doubt about the volunteers’

Ron Paul

The
result for Mr Santorum will bring in cash, free advertising in the form of
media coverage but also additional scrutiny and attacks.

Mr Santorum, who has largely escaped
scrutiny in Iowa because his poll surge was so late, in particular might
struggle to survive that.

A Suffolk University tracking poll of
likely voters in the New Hampshire primary gave him just three per cent –
putting him in fifth place.

And, unlike Iowa, Mr Romney is certain to be a strong contender in the state neighbouring Massachusetts.

Basement: Michele Bachmann, pictured with her husband Marcus, was only able to defeat Jon Huntsman

Michele Bachmann dances with her husband, Marcus Bachmann, in West Des Moines, Iowa, left, and supporter William Temple, right, waits at her Iowa caucus night rally

Skipping out: Former Utah Gov Jon Huntsman, who was trailing each of his Republican rivals in Iowa, is campaigning in New Hampshire instead and was not expected to do well on the first night of voting

JOHN MCCAIN EXPECTED TO RETURN THE FAVOUR AND BACK MITT ROMNEY

Former
Republican presidential candidate John McCain is endorsing Mitt Romney
for the party’s 2012 nomination, it has been claimed.

Old friends: Mitt Romney, right, is pictured with John McCain in Boston, Massachusetts, in February 2008

The
Arizona Senator, who ran against Barack Obama in 2008, will announce
his support later today while touring New Hampshire with him, according
to a GOP official.

The
endorsement is a signal by the GOP’s one-time standard-bearer that
Republicans should start falling in line behind the former Massachusetts
governor.

Mr Romney
has failed to catch the race on fire and many of his supporters are said
to be lukewarm about the prospect of him challenging Mr Obama in
November.

So Mr McCain’s public backing – which is likely to take place in Peterborough, is especially crucial in the Granite State.

New
Hampshire voters have twice backed him in primaries, giving him the
edge over George W Bush in 2000 and again in 2008, when he dashed Mr
Romney’s hopes.

His
endorsement is thought to be Mr McCain returning political favour after
Mr Romney backed the Arizona senator after dropping out of the presidential race in
2008.

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