A headline on the Politico website told the story — or, more accurately, the part of the story Politico and much of the rest of the news media want told: "Michele Bachmann wins Ames Straw Poll, Tim Pawlenty gets third."

A link takes the reader to "the full article," which notes that Bachmann, the third-term Minnesota congresswoman "won 4,823 votes, narrowly edging out Ron Paul," who received exactly 152 fewer votes among the 16,892 ballots cast. That was the only mention of Paul in the "full article."

It might seem strange that Pawlenty's distant third-pace finish and his exit from the presidential race immediately thereafter should draw more news coverage than Paul's virtual tie with Bachmann for first place. Sunday's New York Times at least fit Paul, rather than Pawlenty, into the headline and noted in its story the closeness of Paul's 28 percent of the vote to Bachmann's 29 percent. (Actually, it was even closer when you look past the rounding off of numbers. Bachmann's total represented. 28.55 percent, while Paul's 4,671 votes gave him 27.65 percent of the total.) But it barely mentioned the Texas Congressman thereafter, beyond noting only that his "libertarian views put him at odds with many Republicans."

Click here to read the entire article.

Ron Paul - AP Photo