Column - Footnoted caucus does Iowa no favors

(Today's expanded print column version of yestetrday's post)

So we finally have an Iowa caucus winner.*

Cue the confetti cannons. Strike up the band. Pop the corks.

Oh, well, never mind.

Sixteen days after Iowans marched to their precincts, we find out that Mitt Romney's stunning 8-vote win is really Rick Santorum's stunning 34-vote win, according to now certified results. Well, there is one small problem.

Apparently eight precincts out of 1,774 didn't file the right paperwork, so their results don't count. That led state GOP leaders to initially call this result a “split decision” - a “tie for the ages,” said The Des Moines Register.

Except that it's not really a tie when one candidate gets more votes. That became increasingly evident as hours passed Thursday and pressure mounted on Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn to declare a winner. And by midday, Strawn declared Santorum victorious, with ambiguity for none, and damage control for all.

This was not a good day for the Republican Party of Iowa. I know that disputes over results have happened often in the history of our curious contest. Volunteers make mistakes. Still, in this era of easy, instant communication, it's tough to accept the notion that these few disputed precincts couldn't file a form on time, resulting in this odd outcome. Siri, who won Estherville Ward 2?

And I know that none of this is supposed to matter now. The caucuses are really about expectations and three tickets out and winnowing the field. So, mission accomplished. And the circus is long gone, off to South Carolina now. Romney is on his way, although you do have to wonder how a narrow loss on caucus night might have slowed his cruising speed. Santorum is declaring victory, which is a proud American tradition for candidates with the most votes. But it's unlikely this belated boost will send him to the presidency.

Still, if we're going to argue to the rest of the country that Iowa should be first and important, then it's pretty tough to also argue that it's not important who finishes first in Iowa. Close is not close enough. Hand grenades, horseshoes and caucuses?

This slapstick ending just hands one more weapon to an already heavily armed legion of caucus critics. Now those long, familiar diatribes against small, white, quaint Iowa can end with the phrase, “and we don't even really know who won the last one.”

Sure it's unfair, but this is politics. And clinging to Iowa's role is hard enough without self-inflicted damage. We can defend Iowa's process and its peculiar customs, but we'd also better think, as Gov. Terry Branstad urged Monday, how to make it better next time. Or Iowa will go from an asterisk to a presidential footnote.