David McElroy

Now that Michele Bachmann’s campaign has died a merciful death, I need to mention this before she becomes even more of a footnote to the campaign than she already is. Bachmann has ridiculed Barack Obama for his use of a TelePrompTer, but I’ve noticed that she reads many of her statements from her iPad. Is this any different?

I love my iPad, so I’m not critical of her using it for this purpose. I can see how the device would be a great tool for staying on message while you’re on a campaign and need to quickly get a scripted message to reporters or an audience.

The problem is that she’s a hypocrite — and hardly anybody seems to notice. I don’t have any problem with Bachmann using the iPad as a mini-teleprompter, but I also don’t have any problem with Obama using one. I know that attacking Obama — even for something as mundane as using a TelePrompTer — gets cheers from the kind of people who supported her, but you’d think her own head would explode from the obvious hypocrisy of what she was doing.

But maybe there was no brain inside the head, so there was nothing to explode. It’s hard to say. Either way, she’s history, so we shouldn’t have to deal with her anymore this year.

Now that the first votes have been cast in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, let’s take a quick look at where the seven candidates stand. We’ll go in order of finish on Tuesday.

Mitt Romney was the official winner on Tuesday, but he was more like a co-winner. He didn’t originally intend to make Iowa important to his campaign this year, but he did end up putting effort into the state when it became obvious that he could win with a last-minute push. The investment paid off and he’s now off to New Hampshire, where he should be a big winner. Grade: A

Rick Santorum has now become the latest conservative flavor of the month. He gained the most from Iowa, because he came within a few votes of winning the state, which brought him (at least for now) out of the pack and made him into a major contender. The question now is whether conservatives are going to line up behind this strong social conservative as the “anti-Romney.” I don’t think he’s a serious threat to Romney yet, although he has a chance to do well among religious conservatives in southern states. Grade: A+

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Do you remember me telling you in September that straw polls don’t matter? Many of you insisted in emails to me (and in some comments) that straw polls mean a lot. Let’s revisit that discussion.

In mid-August, Michele Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll with 28 percent of the vote. Here’s the lead of a Fox News story reporting her “important” win: “Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll Saturday, affirming her status as a top-tier candidate in the Republican race to challenge President Obama in 2012.”

That was always sheer fantasy. What happened Tuesday in Iowa is reality.

Bachmann finished the actual caucuses — you know, the vote that matters — with roughly 5 percent of the vote. Her 28 percent showing in a straw poll was shown to be irrelevant.

And what of the winners in Iowa on Tuesday. As I write this, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are still neck and neck for a photo finish, but they’re the clear winners. (Ron Paul was in third place, a respectable finish, but far behind his 27 percent in the straw poll — and far away from the predictions of winning coming from his supporters lately.) The two Iowa winners were also-rans in the August straw poll.

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