Did Ron Paul Win Iowa?

Mitt Romney was the clear victor in Iowa from our viewpoint but wait…a statistical analysis professor at Berkeley declares that Ron Paul was a “clear winner” of the Ames Iowa Straw poll.  He had the highest percent gain according to this professor.

As the professor puts it:

In looking at these results, Romney did more than a factor of 2 worse than expected as per the Combined Normalized Average (CNA). He was a big loser.  Mike Huckabee more than doubled his expected CNA and is obviously the true winner at the Straw Poll…Ron Paul showed a 350% improvement over his CNA at the straw poll and is clearly the second winner at the event.

Statistic vs. realistic.  One can argue statistically that something is quantitatively accurate but that doesn’t make it realistic.  In research there is some something known as reliable but not valid.  The statistics may be reliable but that doesn’t make them a valid measure of reality.