Romney, Santorum camps react

The “certified” results of the 2012 Iowa Caucuses were released this morning.  Key folks from the two camps involved in the photo-finish talked with Radio Iowa this morning.

Dave Kochel was the architect of Romney’s Iowa campaign:

“Caucus Night, with 100 percent of the precincts reporting, Governor Romney was winning the Iowa Caucuses. With the results now being unable to certify precincts, the party has decided they cannot declare a winner. We congratulate Senator Santorum on an excellent campaign in Iowa. The good news is the Iowa Caucuses had a record turn-out by Republicans and really what this represents to us is the first step to defeating Barack Obama in November and Iowa is off to a good start with the Caucus participation as it was. We’re pleased with Governor Romney’s results and we’re appreciative of the hard work that hte party did to certify these results.  It’s a very difficult thing. This is probably the most complete results that have ever been released by the Republican Party of Iowa.  As a former executive director I know because we were only able to release probably all but 50 precincts in 1996 when I was executive director, so it’s a very complicated and difficult thing to do. The fact that the results are so close means that they a’re unable to  declare a winner.”

Radio Iowa caught up with Bob Vander Plaats, a late endorser of Rick Santorum, just as he boarded a plane this morning, so he had just a little time to talk before take-off: 

“It’s exciting to see that (Santorum) won the Caucuses. I hope the media now reports that he’s the winner versus Romney’s the winner because when the results were inconclusive they kept reporting that Romney was the winner. I think this is great news for Santorum heading into Saturday with an Iowa Caucus victory at his back.”