Iowa

A campaign spokesman for President Obama's reelection team, Jen Psaki, seemed to agree with an MSNBC host earlier today that the president is not able to run on "hope" and "change" this election cycle:

At an apparently unscheduled stop at a Boys and Girls Club in Sioux City, Iowa, Vice President told a group of about 75 boys about the 2008 election. "I never intended to get involved in politics and become vice president," Biden reportedly said, according to the pool report. The pool reporter then writes, "[Biden] said his 2008 run for the presidency ended badly."

Via Hot Air, there are two reports from precincts that election night tallies were wrong. In one instance, a man credibly claims that Romney was awarded 20 more votes than he actually received. But Santorum said on Fox News last night that 21 Romney votes weren't counted in another precinct, so Romney still has the lead. 

At National Review Online, Artur Davis takes a look at the electability of the GOP contenders after Iowa. The conventional wisdom is that this issue is a big advantage for Mitt Romney, but Davis isn't so sure that Santorum can't defy expectations:

Radio host Bill Bennett woke Rick Santorum up this morning after his near victory in Iowa last night. “I just called Rick Santorum’s cell,” Bennett said. “And I woke him up. I feel terrible!”

The top-5 finishers in the Iowa Republican caucus had widely varying degrees of success in turning money spent into votes received. According to data published by BuzzFeed, showing how much was spent on Iowa media ads by each candidate (or by the super PACs and others who supported them), here’s how many votes each candidate received for every $1,000 spent:

James Novogrod of NBC tweets some developments this morning suggesting that Bachmann's out:

Breaking - Bachmann has apparently cancelled her South Carolina trip; her campaign has called a press conference at 10amCT.

Yesterday, I posed five questions about the Iowa caucuses, and the answers are now in. Mitt Romney set a new all-time record for the lowest winning share of the vote (for either party) in the Iowa caucuses — 25 percent — one point lower than Bob Dole’s 26 percent level of support in 1996.

In the Iowa caucuses, winning isn’t enough. Mitt Romney narrowly defeated Rick Santorum in the first contest in the Republican presidential race, yet his prospects of capturing the nomination were scarcely improved.

Manchester, N.H.
As caucusgoers gathered Tuesday night in Iowa, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign here tries to maintain its focus on the first in the nation New Hampshire primary. In the campaign office on Elm Street, a cadre of young, college-aged volunteers works the phones and snacks on pizza. Except for the communal television which is tuned to Fox News to check in on Iowa, and which only attracts the scattered attention of a few staffers, work goes on as usual. 

Bedford, N.H.
Rick Santorum’s New Hampshire headquarters say he’s the quintessential insurgent. It sits in a small strip building housing a vacant office and an evangelical church. The ceiling is low, the carpet is a dingy gray, and the desks are makeshift slabs of Formica balanced on old filing cabinets. The entire operation might be 900 square feet—the size of a generous one-bedroom apartment.

BuzzFeed reports:

Arizona Senator John McCain, his party's 2008 nominee, will endorse Mitt Romney in New Hampshire tomorrow, a well-placed former McCain aide told BuzzFeed Tuesday...