Friday was the deadline to file for Illinois' March 20 presidential primary and right now two things stand out:
* Jon Huntsman isn't on the Illinois ballot, either with a slate of delegates or in the presidential preference (beauty contest) primary. Illinois may not be the Republican goldmine it was 40 years ago but it's still worth fighting for, especially for a moderate Republican. If Huntsman isn't organized in a state like Illinois, it's hard to see where his support -- and his delegates -- will come from to win at the Republican convention.
* Second, the State Board of Elections still isn't reporting a delegate slate for Rick Santorum in the 13th Congressional District (which includes Champaign, Urbana, Decatur, much of Springfield and parts of Bloomington-Normal) although Santorum's Illinois coordinator, Jon Zahm, assured me again today that they filed a 13th District slate by Friday's 5 p.m. deadline.
"There seems to be a bit of confusion there," Zahm said. "We came in at the end of the day, about 4:15, and we had 15 districts (out of 18 in Illinois) to file. I thought we were going to file 15 slates but they (the state board) wanted us to file each of the 85-90 delegates and alernates separately. That seemed strange to me, so that took more time. So there was some confusion. But everything was on time. Everything got stamped in. Like I said we were there 45 minutes before 5.
"I think that what happened with (Congressional District) 13 is that it just didn't get filed on the (state board) website."
No one has been at the state board of elections all weekend, so we'll have to wait until Monday morning to find if Santorum's 13th District slate is on the ballot.
Here's the 13th District Santorum slate that Zahm said he filed:
Delegate candidates:
Kevin Hughes of Lovington
Patti S. Williamson-Hughes of Lovington
James P. Woods of Chesterfield
Alternate delegate candidates:
Rick D. Williams of Mahomet
Christopher Bethel of Collinsville
Martha Ruppert of Hillsboro
If the Santorum slate is on the ballot in the 13th District, it will join those of Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.
Barack Obama is unopposed on the Democratic ballot. in his home state.
Although Rick Perry and Buddy Roemer are on the Illinois presidential preference ballot, they do not have delegate slates in the 13th.
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