With the counting complete in the Iowa Caucuses, who are the winners and the losers?

UPDATE: The results below were in error – one precinct held out until early in the morning. At which point there were just enough votes to put Mitt Romney over the top by 8, according to the Iowa GOP, although they haven’t released updated numbers yet. Conspiracy? Gross incompetence? We report, you decide….

Final numbers (maybe):

Romney 30,015

Santorum 30,007

Results with 100% 99% in:

Santorum 29,908 24.6%

Romney 29,874 24.5%

Paul 26,097 21.4%

Gingrich 16,161 13.3%

Perry 12,536 10.3%

Bachman 6,056 5.0%

Winner: Rick Santorum

And not just in the sense of “Dude got the most votes”, although he did get 34 more votes than the next guy only 8 fewer votes than Mitt.

No, he’s the winner because last month he was the nobody. And suddenly he’s the leader. That’s gotta feel good. And he did it with a solid showing from Tea Party and evangelical voters, which should help him in general with the Republican base in other conservative states like South Carolina and Florida.

Sure, he’s got no organization and no money… but those can come later. Sure, he’s got that Google problem. Sure, he’s widely viewed as a loser who was blown out by 17 points in his last Senate race.

But that’s all for tomorrow. Tonight, he’s gotta be basking in the happy glow of The Just-about-for-all-intents-and-purposes-except-for-those-last-8-votes Winner.

Loser: Mitt Romney

Romney is having a hell of a time getting more than 25% of the vote.

He’ll do better in New Hampshire (polls currently show him around 40%), but that’s already discounted because it’s the former Massachusetts Governor’s back yard. He’s gonna get his ass handed to him in South Carolina and Florida, the next primaries up. Even in Iowa, where he spent a shit-ton of money and campaigned hard, he barely pulled in more votes than last time around in 2008, when he lost Iowa to Mike Huckabay. (Who? Exactly!)

His current campaign strategy appears to be “I have $200 million and universal name recognition. I’ll just hang in there until the 75% of Republicans who don’t like me have nobody left standing to vote for. Then they’ll vote for me over Obama, because they won’t have any other choice.”

As @ stevekimura put it, “Only in Iowa would a candidate that wasn’t good enough for 75% of their voters claim victory”. Expect to hear that a lot.

Footnote: In 2008, Romney won second place with 30,021 votes for 25.19 percent. This year, Romney won first place with30,015 votes for 24.6 percent. Four years later, millions of dollars spent, eight less votes…

Also, too: Josh Marshall and Steve Benen note that Romney did win one prize: The enmity of Newt Gingrich. Mittens stomped Newt hard, with millions of dollars in negative ads. Newt appears ready to stay in the race and stomp back on Mitt, and stomp back hard.

Winner: Ron Paul

We thought Ron Paul’s ceiling was around 9%. He busted through that tonight in a big way, and his hard-core supporters are already spreading conspiracy theories that the evil GOP establishment cooked the books to deny him the victory.

This showing could earn Paul some second looks, especially if Perry drops out, as seems likely. Also, he had a pretty good showing with Tea Partiers and evangelicals, a vote he split with Santorum (see below).

Loser: Rick Perry

There are still those who insist Perry was a viable candidate, but tonight’s poor showing put that to rest once and for all. How bad was it?

@ 2chambers:

Perry spent $4.5M on TV ads in Iowa. Got 12,127 votes (so far). That’s $374 a vote. Not including $1.5M Super PAC spending.

Perry is going home to Texas to re-evaluate. We do not expect him to ride out on the trail again. It’s time to hang up those spurs before he puts his foot in his mouth one more time and causes some serious damage.

UPDATE: Perry tweets that he’s going to continue the fight in South Carolina (skipping New Hampshire).

Winner: Not Mitt

A full-bodied 75% of Republicans voted for Not Mitt tonight. The problem was, there were a bunch of bodies to divide the Not Mitt vote.

The heart of the GOP primarly electorate are the Tea Party and the evangelicals, who came out tonight for Santorum. As those voters come to terms with the fact that they are being asked to pull the lever for a CATHOLIC… and one who hasn’t won an election since 2000, and was at the heart of the pay-for-play corruption that brought down the previous GOP leadership, igniting the cleansing fire of the Tea Party… well, you can imagine how they’re going to feel.

Not Mitt has sequentially possessed the bodies of Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and now Rick Santorum. Half of those bodies have now fallen by the wayside. Who’s next? Will the chalice remain with Santorum, or will it pass to Ron Paul? Regardless, the problem with Romney’s strategy remains: divide and conquer only works if you face more than one opponent. Eventually, Mitt may face a single Not Mitt, at which point there is absolutely no evidence that Mitt will triumph.

It could be Ron Paul. It could be Rick Santorum. Who knows? But if the race comes down to a one-on-one, mano-a-mano, there’s no guarantee that the last man standing will be Mitt the Flipper.

Winner: Comedians

It’s a gold mine!

Wil Wheaton

Watching the Iowa caucus results come in is like watching a slow motion clown car crash.

KagroX

Crazy Iowa caucus process! No one can understand it! What do they want? What are their demands?

Even the candidates got into the act:

Huntsman’s message to the victor of tonight’s caucus, whoever it will be, reports NBC’s Jo Ling Kent:

“Welcome to New Hampshire. Nobody cares.”

Ron Paul tweets:

@jonhuntsman we found your one Iowa voter, he’s in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks.

And from our own earlier coverage:

We have NOT been reporting on former LA Governor Buddy Roehmer’s numbers, because, well, he’s currently at 9 (yes, that’s not %, that’s VOTES), which actually puts him at FEWER votes than Herman Cain had sexual harassment accusers.

But at least he has a sense of humor about it. He tweets:

I almost have enough votes in Iowa to start a bowling league

Winner: The Planet

And as Obama sits on the sidelines and chortles, and rallies his base, he’s gotta be thinking “I could beat any of these clowns with one hand tied behind my back”.

Which is good for the planet, because as inconsistent and imperfect as Obama may be, he’s still they guy who is implementing stronger auto emission standards, stronger mercury standards, and a host of other environmental policies that are light-years better than anything we’d get from the folks in the clown car (who want to eliminate the EPA and drill for oil in your bedroom).

You can help with that process. If you contributed last time but are reluctant now, why not contribute to President Obama’s re-election via ActGreen? Let your campaign cash send him a message that he needs to think about those of us who care about the planet, too.

Donate now to President Obama or other pro-environment candidates via Act Green.