It was a long night for media coverage of the Iowa caucuses, with the final results not in until around 2:30 a.m.
Mitt Romney edged Rick Santorum by 8 votes, 30,015 to 30.007, which according to CNN was the second closest caucus race in U.S. history after Guam in 2008, which Barack Obama won by seven votes over Hillary Clinton.
According to MSNBC's Michael Isikoff, Restore Our Future, a Super Pac founded by Romney supporters outspent the Romney campaign by $1.3 million in Iowa, primarily on attack ads against front-runner Newt Gingrich, who wound up fourth in the voting behind Ron Paul.
In what amounted to a concession speech early in the night, Gingrich decried those attack ads and by contrast praised Santorum for having run a positive campaign. He said he did not plan to counter with his own "30-second gotcha's," but promised to "tell the truth" about Romney.
Super Pacs are a relatively new phenomenon, whose rise is partly attributable to the Supreme Court's September 2010 decision to allow direct funding of TV and radio campaign ads by corporations and unions.
Both Santorum and Romney talked in their election-night speeches about government getting out of the way of business and American enterprise.
