Almost meaningless for reasons we’ve been covering for days now.

Anyway, she narrowly squeaked out a win over perennial candidate Ron Paul. How did she do it? Just like Paul: You give away thousands of tickets to your supporters so they can overwhelm other candidates. Representative of the national mood? Nope. Representative of party mood? Nope. Representative of how Iowa will eventually vote? Nope. Just representative of who bused-in the most supporters.

Which, again, is why I’ve been downplaying the poll for days. Everyone puts so much credence in its results, yet it’s a terrible predictor. We’re talking about a poll that saw Bush win over Reagan in 1979. A poll that saw Buchanan over Bush in 1987. And a poll that saw Phil Gramm tie with Bob Dole in 1995. Not exactly a great indicator of the eventual nominee.

Besides, if we’re placing credence in the poll, consider this: Not only did Tim Pawlenty come in third, but Rick Santorum was fourth. Pawlenty is just barely keeping his head above water and the talk has been about when he’ll drop out. Santorum is a non-factor in the race.

If you want to take anything of significance from the poll, here’s something: Rick Perry got 718 voters. Sounds meager compared to Michelle Bachmann’s 4,823 votes. Until you realize Perry only declared today and his name wasn’t even on the ballot. 718 attendees wrote his name in rather than selecting one of the available options. And he and his folks were in South Carolina — not Iowa.