Good. My intent is to keep the nomination from Romney.
ConclusionIn summary, it appears as if in a worst case scenario for Santorum, his ballot access problems will cost him a shot at up to 111 delegates. In a best case scenario where his challenge to ballot status in Indiana succeeds and he could convince other candidates delegates to support him in Illinois, he would only be missing out on 74 delegates.
All of this assumes of course that Santorum would win every delegate in all of these states. Given the proportional awarding of the delegates in many of these states, it is virtually impossible that he would have done that anyways. Being ineligible for the 49 delegates of Virigina constitutes at worst almost half the damage to Santorum’s delegate winning prospects. However, if he wouldn’t have won there anyways, he really is losing very few delegates from not being on the ballot.
Of the 1144 delegates Santorum would need to become the nominee, not being eligible for all of the delegates he could be certainly won’t help him, but the number of delegates he can’t receive are far from enough to stop him from being the nominee. If he gains momentum and continues to win states, he will have no problem amassing enough delegates to win.
Rick is still fighting the Indiana ballot battle, which probably is the one that would hurt him most. The way things are now he’d have a decent chance at winning there, whereas winner take all Virginia would be harder. Best plan there is to have Rick and Newt gang us for protest Paul votes. It might even pay off with grateful Paul votes in the general for letting Wrong have a night to celebrate. I don’t know what Rick’s chances are in Indiana, but they’re probably better than Newt’s forcing Florida to award proportionally.