The West Virginia Republican primary election on May 8 is a beauty contest primary with completely separate elections for 18 at-large delegates and 3 congressional district delegates in each congressional district. The candidate list on the West Virginia Secretary of State’s web site includes a listing of all candidates for delegate to the Republican national convention and their commitment status.

While there are 18 at-large delegate slots, Mitt Romney has 25 delegate candidates, Newt Gingrich has 23, Ron Paul has 19, but Rick Santorum has only 3. There are also 42 candidates who did not pledge to a particular candidate, who could be elected as uncommitted delegates.

For the 3 district delegate slots in the 1st Congressional District, Mitt Romney has 8 delegate candidates, Gingrich has 10, Paul has 3, and Santorum has 2. There are 7 uncommitted candidates.

For the 3 district delegate slots in the 2nd Congressional District, Mitt Romney has 7 delegate candidates, Gingrich has 6, Paul has 3, and Santorum has none. There are 10 uncommitted candidates.

For the 3 district delegate slots in the 3rd Congressional District, Mitt Romney has 7 delegate candidates, Gingrich has 3, Paul has 3, and Santorum has none. There are 11 uncommitted candidates.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have endorsed and voted for Governor Romney in the Virginia primary election after my recent move to Ole Virginny. Of course, consider that over the last 6 years, my picks for the 2008 Republican nomination were George Allen, then Fred Thompson, then Romney (I was a Romney delegate to the disastrous 2008 West Virginia Republican state convention in which Romney won a strong plurality on the first ballot but then lost after all the other candidates’ delegates combined forces to vote for The Huckster to deprive Romney the win he would have received had everyone cast their second ballots in good faith), and that I initially supported Rick Perry last summer before he became my most recent endorsement failure. I seem to be the Oscar the cat of Republican presidential candidate selection of late.

Returning to the matter of the West Virginia Republican primary election on May 8, if no candidate has clinched our party’s nomination, West Virginia Republican primary voters will face a responsibility they have not faced since 1976. In addition to the beauty contest primary, the voters will have to wade through dozens of candidates for 18 at-large delegates and 3 congressional district delegates. In most years, the delegate election is of no consequence. However, if the nomination remains up for grabs, supporters of 3 of the 4 candidates have more than ample slates of committed delegates. However, Senator Santorum has the additional challenge of identifying the uncommitted delegates who will support him in Tampa and communicate to his voters the slate of uncommitted delegates he needs in order to make up for his failure to recruit delegate candidates and have them file to run as committed candidates. I will say that based on my personal knowlede of many of the delegate candidates, Senator Santorum would most likely secure the support of more than enough uncommitted delegate candidates to execute this strategy. However, the difficulty will lie in communicating to tens of thousands of voters throughout the state the exact slate of delegate candidates desired by the Santorum campaign.

Why does Senator Santorum have so few committed delegate candidates? Simple: During West Virginia’s candidate filing period–which began January 9 and ended January 28, one week after the South Carolina primary–Senator Santorum did not file to run in the beauty contest primary until January 27 and his national campaign sent mixed messages concerning his status as a candidate for the long haul. This was a serious mistake, as West Virginia has very easy ballot access: a $2,500 filing fee and no petition signature requirements. Senator Santorum instead filed so late that many delegate candidates who would have committed to him instead filed to run as uncommitted candidates and did not take advantage of the short window of opportunity (closed February 14) to change their listed presidential candidate preference. Governor Romney and Speaker Gingrich both filed to run in the beauty contest primary during the first week of the 3-week filing period–not the next to last day–and consequently gave their supporters a more than ample opportunity to file to run for convention delegates. (I will fault these campaigns for not invoking their right under state law to file “official” delegate candidate lists that would have triggered a requirement that all unapproved candidates be listed on the ballot as uncommitted delegates.)

Before I moved to Virginia recently, I served on the West Virginia Republican State Executive Committee. Last summer, the state committee made the heart-wrenching decision to abandon the state convention process that proved disastrous in 2008 for a primary election that we believed would make West Virginia irrelevant to the selection of our next President. However, if this prediction of irrelevance proves wrong, West Virginia Republicans will see a very interesting primary campaign coming their way–certainly far more interesting than the Romney-Paul cricket-chirping contest that visited Ole Virginny.