Iowa Republican Party chairman Matthew Strawn, who’d previously waffled on whether anyone had in fact won his state’s hotly contested caucuses, finally declared evangelical sweetheart Rick Santorum the winner in a statement yesterday. While certainly not great news for Romney, the fact that he was able to claim a win on election night did him more good than this news will likely do for Santorum, who’s still struggling to get a toehold in South Carolina, which votes in its primary today. But the real loser in all this is without a question the caucuses themselves. Political observer David Yepsen told the Des Moines Register that the bumbled vote count “really jeopardizes the future of the event,” adding, “Iowa was just indicted for not being able to add. We look silly.”
