Two down-four to go after Iowa

The Iowa caucuses have now claimed a second candidate with Michele Bachmann announcing in the past hour that she is suspending her campaign.

Bachmann finished bottom of the pile earlier today winning just five per cent of the vote and joins Texan governor Rick Perry in taking a sabbatical from the race.

So just four candidates now head to New Hampshire with Mitt Romney seemingly the favourite.

She told a room of supporters and reporters in Iowa that "I have decided to stand aside," she told a room of supporters and reporters in Iowa.

 She added that she leaves the race knowing the campaign was run "with integrity." and that the country needs to "stand united behind the person our party chooses to be the standard bearer."

Iowa and your twitter stream-some thoughts

I have had a bit of twitter conversation with two colleagues this morning about how their twitter stream was filled with reports from the Iowa Caucuses overnight and this morning.

The conversation centred around how relevant is was at such an early stage and how we in the UK were going to have put up with 10 more months of it.

My reply was firstly that it was relevant even it this early stage as Iowa set the stalls up for the rest of the campaign.

They are not a great bunch of candidates but one could be the effective leader of the Western world in less than a year,so it is important

One candidate Rick Perry have effectively thrown the towel in,another Michele Bachmann seems doomed and Newt Gingrich,whilst pressing on to New Hampshire has been given a bloody nose.

Yes,let's put into perspective.Only 120,000 voters in one of the smallest states,yet it seems that Mitt Romney,the narrow winner,who is likely later today to get the endorsement of 2008 candidateSenator John McCain,has set his flag firmly in the ground.

Runner up Rick Santorum,who probably until now few have heard of has announced to the world that he has his sights firmly set on the White House and Ron Paul,who I am afraid makes me think of the alien Paul in last years hit Sci Fi movie will continue to battle.

But back to that twitter conversation.It might well be that we have to look at our twitter stream to decide whether to carry on following individuals who keep us up to date with every single sneeze that comes out of the campaign.

 We can to a certain extent do that with lists(I rarely unfollow people) but as I pointed out,it is no worse than when twitter gets taken over by people who you would regard as sensible,bleating about X factor,Dragon's Den and Masterchef.

hat,I am afraid is the social media world that we live in,but remember,if you don't like it, it's only a click away from leaving

All down to Iowa

After much huffing and puffing the Republican nominations for Presidential candidate get under way finally today in Iowa.

The campaign has up til now been littered with gaffes,withdrawals,embarrassments with true Republicans still holding out the hope that a "proper candidate to challenge Barack Obama in November will appear.

At the moment we have six runners and riders,the front runner from the start of the campaign,Mitt Romney trying to walk the tightrope between the needs of parts of his hardline party and his real views being closely pursued at least in this state by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul.

Also still in the race and favourite amongst some parts is former congressional speaker Newt Gingrich,along with the gaffe prone Rick Perry and one time tea party favourite Michelle Bachmann.

By all accounts it is going to be a tight finish and although this is a small state,it is always seen as important as Republicans gather in their precinct caucuses to discuss who they will nominate.

It is the start of a long running battle to the summer with New Hampshire,South Carolina and Florida to follow this month.

The Iowa caucuses are really about giving the media a voter-based reason to narrow their national coverage to two or three candidates,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist unaffiliated with any of the presidential campaigns. “Success is driven by the media attention, which in turn has a huge impact on fundraising and even polling numbers in the next wave of state primaries.”

By tomorrow morning we will probably have a good idea of who won't be running for President and the three names that could still be in the race.