UPDATE 10:48 PM CENTRAL: With 96% of precincts reporting, Rick Santorum narrowly leads Mitt Romney, both at 25% in Iowa. The candidates have wrestled back-and-forth as the final tallies are counted. Ron Paul at a close third with 21%, conceded the race calling himself 'one of the three winners,' while vowing to go on, continue raising funds and fighting for victory in what he termed a movement, rather than a campaign. Santorum's surprise last-minute surge coincides with announcements that the vote in Iowa would be counted at a secret location, and along with statements from top GOP officials strategizing how to effectively take out Ron Paul and diminish his significance. It is no secret that all the stops have been pulled to minimize Paul's media visibility throughout the campaign trail, with many top GOP figures and media commentators going so far as to pre-script a plan to ignore Iowa in the event that Ron Paul won the caucuses, in order to prevent the Congressman from dominating the national stage.Did the GOP establishment succeed in sabotaging the Ron Paul campaign as it vowed to do?What accounts for Santorum's swift rise to the top of polls in Iowa only days out from the contest when he barely showed a pulse in ANY state, let alone Iowa, among the crowded GOP field at any time in the weeks and months before? The Des Moines Register poll from ONLY two days ago showed Santorum at 15%-- a distance third that itself marked a spectacular improvement from a campaign that struggled to even stand out in the 'second tier' of GOP candidates. Both Paul and Romney consistently ranked in the top three polls for Iowa for some time.Whatever the answer, for the so-called "mainstream" corporate-owned media who dominate news wires and cable television (but must now combat the rise of Internet journalism), it will be enough to justify ignoring Ron Paul and keeping him out of the headlines in hopes of sinking the entire campaign before it catches on at a truly national level. Source
Additionl: Iowa Vote Counted in 'Secret' Location!
Additionl: Iowa Vote Counted in 'Secret' Location!