The much anticipated Republican Iowa caucus, the first state contest to nominate the Republican Party's bid for the 2012 presidential elections, produced the narrowest of victories for Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts. Romney defeated a recently surging former Pennsylvania House Representative and Senator Rick Santorum, 53, by only eight votes. Romney won with 24.55 percent of the votes while Santorum secured second place with 24.54 percent. Ron Paul finished third with 21.5 percent, Newt Gingrich fourth with13 percent and Rick Perry fifth with 10 percent. Michele Bachmann finished last with only five percent. John Huntsman, who didn't contest the Iowa Caucus, still earned one percent of the votes.

The Iowa caucus results still give no clear picture of who will emerge as the Republican presidential candidate. Just last week, the ever changing Republican polls indicated Ron Paul was leading in Iowa. Romney was second in the polls and Gingrich, who was leading the polls both in Iowa and nationwide up to three weeks ago, had slid to the third position. Santorum however, who had been focusing his campaign on Iowa for months, showed signs of moving up, and pundits speculated he could be a surprising victor in Iowa.

On Tuesday night, as the caucus results came in, there was a constant see-saw battle between Romney, considered a moderate Republican, and Santorum, a conservative. Romney, who only shifted his focus to Iowa a month ago, largely outspent his rivals in the state by launching a barrage of negative TV ads against his rivals, particularly former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. These recent efforts managed barely to hold off the challenge of Santorum, and knocked Paul to third place.

The immediate casualty of the caucus was Michele Bachmann, who on Wednesday morning announced she was suspending her campaign. Most analysts had already predicted that Bachmann would pull out of the race due to her campaign's reported difficultly with organization and attracting funding.

The future of Perry's campaign remains uncertain, as he announced after the Iowa caucus that he would be returning to his home-state, Texas, to re-think his campaign.

For the January 10 primary in New Hampshire, the race is shaping to be a three-way between Romney, Santorum, and Paul. Gingrich however, who showed anger at the persistent negative campaign against him by Romney, even publicly calling Romney a liar, said he would be stepping up his campaign against Romney. To Romney's advantage, he has significantly more money than any of his rivals, and has already spent thousands of dollars on TV ads in New Hampshire.

Romney's squeaker victory in Iowa, gained him just a fraction more votes than those he secured in losing that state's caucus to Mike Huckleberry in the 2007 presidential race. The fact that Santorum did so well is as an indication that Republicans are still searching for a clear conservative candidate to run against Obama. Santorum's persistent conservative stance could build him momentum from the Iowa results to effectively compete against Romney in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida this month. Now that Santorum has made an impression in Iowa, he should be attracting well-needed campaign funds.

But after Iowa the only thing certain in the Republican's presidential campaign is that Michele Bachmann is out. Everything else is still up in the air.