Election 2012: Because they believe he’ll be the Republican nominee, the dominant media are trying to taint Mitt Romney’s victory in Iowa. In fact, Romney just won a state he was never supposed to win.

No matter how plainly you say something, count on the media to spin it into something else.

Case in point: The very first thing Business Insider politics editor Michael Brendan Dougherty said during a Yahoo News webcast after the narrow Romney triumph in Iowa was: “It means that Mitt Romney is in great shape” — yet somehow the Yahoo News headline for the interview ended up blaring: “The Big Takeaway From Iowa: 75% Of Republicans Don’t Want Mitt Romney.”

Coverage by the Associated Press was headlined “Iowa Win Helps Romney, But Lacks Luster” and began: “Mitt Romney’s whisker-thin Iowa caucus victory was underwhelming in scope and anti-climactic in its finality.”

The New York Times coverage of Romney’s win, meanwhile, asserted that “Despite running a largely mistake-free campaign, Mr. Romney has yet to prove that he can break through the ceiling of support of about 25 % in many polls that has defined his candidacy in a fractured field.”

A fractured field? Romney’s “whisker-thin” win just caused Michele Bachmann, feisty, articulate queen of the Tea Party, to throw in the towel. Texas’ mighty, well-funded longtime governor, Rick Perry, is “reassessing” and may follow Bachmann out the exit.

Romney might well have a fight on his hands if Bachmann, Perry and fourth-place Newt Gingrich unite to back former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, whose unlikely near win in Iowa now makes him Romney’s main challenger. (Ron Paul’s close third-place Iowa showing fell below expectations.)

These once-formidable candidates may share doubts about Romney’s conservatism, but it would be extraordinary to see such presidential-size egos endorse someone who was in or near last place only weeks ago.

The best analysis is that Hawkeye Staters, known for taking their votes very seriously, decided after arguably the messiest GOP presidential contest ever to make defeating Barack Obama their paramount consideration. They chose the man who now seems the steadiest campaigner, offering the best hope of winning on Nov. 6.

This Mormon ex-Northeastern governor who once ran a liberal Republican campaign against Teddy Kennedy was dismissed as a nonstarter with Iowa’s strong evangelical voting bloc — a force that won the caucuses for Mike Huckabee four years ago.

Romney’s campaign, in fact, purposely neglected Iowa for month after month. Yet here he is today, winner of the Iowa caucuses.

The Obama-loving media are free to discount Romney’s feat in Iowa as “anti-climactic.” Far from it. It signals that Republican voters know what the main priority is in 2012: restoring America by giving the president a one-way ticket back to Hawaii.

http://news.investors.com/Article/596773/201201041843/media-romney-iowa-caucuses.htm