It turns out Rick Santorum really did win the Iowa Caucuses!

On the night of the Iowa Caucuses, Mitt Romney was declared a "winner" with an 8 vote margin over Rick Santorum.

Romney joked awkwardly about his "landslide" and it seemed like a real possibility that Romney would win every single primary contest.

Now the current re-counted vote tally shows 29,839 votes for Santorum and 29,805 votes for Romney, according to the party. For all reasonable purposes this is a final count.

Santorum is judged to be ahead by 34 votes, so Mitt Romney called him today to give the traditional concession speech.

But it still isn't a clean victory. The results from several precincts are now missing, and so an official result may never be had.

The news will not make a huge difference to the Republican race, unless Mitt Romney loses South Carolina and his opponents can say that despite all his advantages he only won 1 out of the first 3 contests.

It's terrible for Santorum because it denied him the ability to have a proper victory party in Iowa. Being declared the winner two-weeks late is like being declared your eighth grade spelling-bee winner after you graduated from high school.

The real loser in this isn't Romney, but the Iowa caucuses themselves. The fact that they can't even get an accurate vote count is just embarrassing.