As Rick Santorum tries to gain ground on Mitt Romney in the race for Republican delegates, Santorum’s late start in states other than Iowa continues to make it hard for him to compete for every potential delegate.

Santorum will not compete for delegates in four of Illinois’ 18 congressional districts, meaning he is only eligible to win 44 of the state’s 54 delegates at stake tonight.

But it could have been even worse.

Copies of Santorum delegate petitions provided to NBC News by the Illinois State Board of Elections also show that in 10 other districts, Santorum did not have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. (In Illinois, a GOP candidate needs three people -- in most districts -- willing to be a delegate, plus 600 signatures to get on the ballot.)

The only way, however, for a candidate to be deemed ineligible is for a campaign to contest the signatures. In other words, the state is not going to check them unless a campaign officially asks it to do so.

The Romney campaign initially did challenge Santorum’s petitions in January, but dropped it after the Santorum campaign agreed to drop similar contests of Romney delegates, according to Jon Zahm, Santorum’s Illinois state director.

Santorum's campaign said it challenged the Romney delegates, because the petitions were notarized in Massachusetts, according to Zahm. (It's unclear, however, if that's the case or if notarizing out of state would have made the petitions invalid.)

While candidates run in a non-binding statewide primary in Illinois, the delegates run individually in congressional districts with their pledged presidential candidate printed next to their name. According to Illinois election law, each delegate must submit a petition to the State Board of Elections with at least 600 signatures in order to run.

The copies of Santorum’s petitions reveal he had fewer than 600 signatures in districts one, two, three, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, and 18. In seven of those districts, the petitions had fewer than half the required signatures.

Illinois is not the first state where a missed filing deadline has caused Santorum to lose out on delegates. On Super Tuesday, the Santorum campaign failed to meet filing deadlines in Ohio and Virginia causing the former Pennsylvania senator to forego competing for at least 55 delegates. Early next month, Santorum also failed to get on the ballot in the District of Columbia, where he will forego another 16 delegates in the district’s April 3 primary.

The delegate problems come in the context of a campaign where Santorum already faces a large delegate deficit. Based on delegates allotted by NBC News, Mitt Romney has 444 delegates, more than twice Santorum’s count of 183. (The state of Wyoming today switched one more delegate from Santorum to Romney.)

Santorum would have to significantly outperform his results so far in order to catch Romney and even approach getting the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Ballot difficulties

It is not easy to meet ballot access requirements in many states, and Illinois is only the latest example the Santorum campaign has seen of getting a late start in launching a national campaign. 

The Santorum campaign did not start its Illinois effort in earnest until late December, according to Zahm, and had only a couple of weeks to get on the state’s primary ballot. In fact, given the late start and lack of a large paid staff in Illinois, it is a testament to Santorum’s volunteers in the state that he is on the ballot at all.

“We started Dec. 23rd,” says Zahm. “We had a two-week campaign to get on the ballot.”

From there, the Santorum campaign faced significant difficulty. With candidates’ delegates running as individuals in each congressional district, the Santorum campaign faced an uphill battle gathering enough signatures for their slates of delegates in such a short amount of time.

In other words, it’s not enough getting the candidate on the statewide ballot; the campaign had to work hard to identify people who would run as delegates and then get hundreds of Illinois Republicans to sign their petitions.

Santorum did not even submit delegate slates, any signatures at all, in the fourth, fifth, and seventh congressional districts -- and a human error resulted in the campaign failing to get on the ballot in the state’s 13th district as well.

As campaign volunteers rushed to get all of the petitions submitted to the State Board of Elections by the 5:00 pm CT deadline on Friday, Jan. 5, volunteers left one of the petition envelopes unopened, and it was mistakenly thrown away. By the time the campaign tried to rectify the mistake with the elections office, the deadline had already passed and Santorum delegates could not get on the ballot.

Contested delegates

Suspecting the Santorum campaign did not have enough signatures, the Romney campaign challenged the petitions of Santorum delegates in the 10 congressional districts where copies of the petitions show Santorum did not, in fact, have enough signatures.

In response, Zahm counter-challenged and filed contests against the Romney delegates, arguing the Romney delegate petitions were notarized by a notary in Massachusetts, which made the petitions invalid. Ultimately, both sides dropped their contests.

“I let the Romney people know I was going after them on that,” Zahm said. “They eventually came to me and asked me to withdraw that complaint as long as they withdrew theirs.”

Romney state chairman Dan Rutherford, also Illinois treasurer, was not available to comment, but Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul simply said the campaign decided not to force Santorum’s delegates off the ballot.

“Senator Santorum outright failed to qualify to be on the ballot in four congressional districts in Illinois,” said Saul in an email to NBC News. “However, in other districts where he fell short, it would have been incumbent on us or another campaign to force him off the ballot.  We decided against doing that.”

Saul blamed Santorum’s ballot problems on his own campaign.

“All of Sen. Santorum’s ballot-access problems have been a result of his own organizational failures,” Saul continued.

Santorum’s path ahead
The Santorum campaign acknowledges it will be difficult for any campaign to get to 1,144 delegates with four candidates in the race but remains confident they can still make inroads in the delegate race. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Santorum adviser John Yob, brought on by the campaign as a delegate strategist, said there is a path for the former Pennsylvania senator to get to 1,144.

According to Yob, the campaign rests its delegate strategy on over-performing in May contests like Arkansas, Kentucky, and Texas and then picking up delegates in states like Iowa and Minnesota, which held caucuses earlier, but do not actually bind delegates until county and state conventions in April and May.

As for the organizational deficiencies, Santorum himself said the campaign struggled with the arcane rules of states with early deadlines, but that the organization now is in good shape.

“It’s amazing that we’re on the ballots we are – given how difficult these rules are from state to state and how different they are and the fact that we used volunteers to get this done in December,” Santorum contended on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday. “Since that time, of course, we’ve been fine. We’re getting on the ballots and, of course, as you’ve seen, our organization is pretty darn good.”

As for tonight’s primary in Illinois, Zahm thinks Santorum can still make a good showing despite starting at an initial delegate disadvantage.

“There’s 14 districts we’re competing in,” Zahm said. “My campaign plan calls for winning 10 of them. If we win 10, we’ll win 10 out of 18 and we’ll have a majority.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum hopes to make a strong showing on Super Tuesday to prove he has staying power in the Republican nominating race, but his campaign’s failure to meet filing requirements in Ohio and Virginia means Santorum will not compete for at least 55 of the delegates at stake Super Tuesday.

Along with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Santorum failed to meet filing requirements to get on Virginia’s primary ballot. He will forego competing for all of Virginia’s 46 delegates at stake on Super Tuesday.

In Ohio, Santorum did not file slates of delegates in three of the state’s 16 congressional districts. Two of the districts are the sixth and 13th districts, both close Santorum’s home region of western Pennsylvania.

The way Ohio’s delegate allocation system works, its 66 delegates are split into three categories: 48 congressional district delegates, 15 at-large delegates, and three Republican National Committee delegates who remain unpledged. The 15 At-Large delegates are awarded proportionally based on the statewide vote, with candidates needing a minimum of 20% of the vote to be eligible for delegates. The 48 congressional district delegates are split up among the state’s 16 districts, with three delegates per district. For those delegates, all three of a district’s delegates are awarded to the winner of that district’s vote. With Santorum ineligible for congressional district delegates in three districts, he will not compete for a combined nine delegates.

In addition, Santorum did not file full slates of delegates in a handful of other districts. In the third, fourth, eighth, 10th, 12th, and 16th districts, Santorum is missing a combined total of nine delegates. But if Santorum wins those districts, he will not necessarily automatically be ineligible for the delegates he is missing.

According to an Ohio GOP source, if Santorum wins the district-wide vote in congressional districts, where he submitted fewer than three delegates, he will get however many delegates he submitted. The leftover delegates will remain unallocated until one of the campaigns brings a contest. The campaigns will make their case for the delegates to a three-person Contest Committee appointed by state Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine. Ultimately, the Contest Committee will make a recommendation to the state’s 66 person Central Committee, which will vote to determine the final allocation of the unallocated delegates.

The prospect of a contested group of delegates comes amidst an acrimonious fight over Michigan’s two at-large delegates. In a meeting after last week’s primary, the Michigan Republican Party determined that the state’s two at-large delegates would both go to Mitt Romney, despite previous statements by the party that the two delegates would be split proportionally.

Santorum also failed to file a full slate of delegates in Tennessee, but Adam Nickas, a spokesman for the state GOP, says Santorum will still get all the delegates he earns on primary night. If Santorum does not have enough names on his slate for the number of delegates he wins, says Nickas, the state party will fill the slots afterward in consultation with the Santorum campaign.

Today the Romney campaign seized on the failures in an attempt to paint the Santorum campaign as unfit for the organizational rigors of a long campaign. In a series of memos and conference calls, the Romney campaign highlighted not only Santorum’s setbacks in Virginia and Ohio, but a failure to get on the ballot in the District of Columbia, an incomplete delegate slate in Illinois, and the lack of a full delegate slate in Tennessee, another Super Tuesday state.

In a conference call with reporters, Romney National Counsel Ben Ginsberg said the ballot failures show Santorum is not organizationally equipped to face President Obama in the fall.

“Getting on the ballot … is a true test, especially for Republican primary voters to look at, whether a candidate’s ready for primetime,” Ginsberg said. “What’s evident from what’s going to happen on Super Tuesday and beyond, is that Rick Santorum flunks that test.”

Today the Santorum campaign responded, saying the campaign is more about message than organization and infrastructure.

"The Romney campaign is just throwing another temper tantrum, because they're a little confused and frustrated as to why they can’t buy this election,” Santorum Communications Director Hogan Gidley said in an email to NBC News today. “This election is not about who has the most money -- or who has the most infrastructure. It’s about electing a president who inspires and believes in the American people instead of the government control.”

NBC’s Andrew Rafferty contributed to reporting.

After completing examination of the nominating petitions filed by Newt Gingrich, the Virginia GOP determined that Gingrich submitted fewer than the 10,000 signatures required, the party said in a press release.

Gingrich has failed to qualify for the ballot and will not be included in the state's March 6 primary.

From NBC’s John Bailey
As we noted in First Thoughts, President Obama’s March Madness bracket this year has all No. 1 seeds in the Final Four -- Kansas, Ohio State, Pitt, and Duke. In his yearly ESPN segment on the bracket, the president, an avid basketball fan, said it was the first time he has ever picked all No. 1s. In the championship, the president picked Kansas over Ohio State, despite the fact that the Jayhawks were his title pick last year and exited in a second round upset to Northern Iowa. This is the fourth time President Obama has released his March picks, the third time as president. So how has he fared?

Past results:
--In 2008, then-Sen. Obama correctly picked three of the Final Four teams, but not the champion (Kansas) or runner up (Memphis).
--2009 was a strong year for the President -- he accurately picked 87.5 percent of the Sweet Sixteen and chose the eventual Champion, UNC.
--The president struggled last year, failing to pick a single team in the Final Four. Then again last year was a difficult year to predict, and the president’s winter may have been a bit filled with the fight over something else… health care reform.

Campaign connection?
--Three teams (Duke, Ohio St., and Pitt.) in the President’s Final Four come from Swing States.
--Six of his Elite Eight come from swing states (Seven of eight if you count Indiana – Purdue).
--Seven teams he has in the Elite Eight come from states the president carried in 2008, the only exception being his pick to win it all: Kansas.
--Of the seven schools to make the Final Four since President Obama was inaugurated (Michigan St. made it twice), six come from states he carried in 2008. West Virginia last year is the exception.
--Of the 12 top-seeded teams this year, 10 come from states the President carried in 2008, the exceptions being BYU and Kansas.

Some other points:
--The president is doubling down on Kansas to win it all this year despite their failure to do so last year—a repeat pick paid off for him in 2009, when he picked UNC for the second year in a row, and they won.
--The president is long on Kansas historically—this year, he’s putting  them in the Final Four for the third time in four years. Then again, Kansas has done very well in the past decade or so in the NCAA.
--Despite a close relationship with his personal aide Reggie Love, who played basketball at Duke, this is the first time the president has Duke advancing to the Final Four.

NBC’s Domenico Montanaro notes other interesting picks in Obama's bracket this year:
--Upsets: No. 12 Richmond over No. 5 Vanderbilt; No. 11 Gonzaga over No. 6 St. John’s; No. 11 Marquette over No. 6 Xavier.

Also, some Republicans are criticizing the president for putting out his NCAA bracket: RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Tweeted: "How can @BarackObama say he is leading when puts his NCAA bracket over the budget & other pressing issues? http://bit.ly/ieSuCI"

For Priebus, Wisconsin has a potentially tough draw in the first round against Belmont and then possibly Kansas State. Obama has Wisconsin losing to K-State.

From NBC's John Bailey
With the price of Brent crude oil spiking -- up 22% since the first of the year, and up 17% since the unrest in the Middle East first began -- the conventional wisdom is that the violence in Libya has contributed to the rise in gas prices.

But Libya supplies less than 2% of the world’s oil. And even though the country's oil supply has seen disruptions, Bloomberg reports that Saudi oil officials have said, “Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations ... are willing and able to replace any lost Libyan oil as soon as companies ask for it.” Some producers in the Persian Gulf have even said the market may be over supplied. 

That has led some to believe that market speculation is to blame for the high gas prices. Back in 2006, a Senate Homeland Security report on the role of speculation in rising oil and gas prices reported that “there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.” As to how much it affected oil prices then, the report said, “analysts have estimated that speculative purchases of oil futures have added as much as $20–$25 per barrel to the current price of crude oil.”

Yet get this: The House spending bill -- which cuts $61 billion in federal spending and which failed to clear the Senate on Wednesday -- reduces the federal government's ability to regulate oil commodities.
 
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act included a provision for rules regulating these types of trades via the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal regulator of the commodities futures markets. These rules would attempt to decrease volatility and prevent unhealthy amounts of leverage.

But last week, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler told the Senate Agriculture Committee that “the CFTC's current funding is far less than what is required to properly fulfill our significantly expanded mission.” However, per CNN Money: “The most recent comprehensive spending bill produced by House Republicans would chop the CFTC's funding by $56.8 million -- almost a third of the agency's entire budget -- over the next seven months.”

From NBC's John Bailey
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) Budget Repair Bill, and the ongoing fight over its provisions, was prompted by a large, looming state budget deficit. Wisconsin has an immediate budget shortfall of $137 million, projected to grow to $3.6 billion by mid-2013. The lion’s share of the blame for Wisconsin’s budget woes falls on the receding economy, but other factors such as tax cuts, rising health care costs, and expiring federal aid have contributed as well.

Wisconsin's budget problems
-- Falling tax revenue resulting from the recession is the greatest culprit of Wisconsin’s budget woes -- between 2008 and 2009, state tax revenues fell over 7%.

-- Since July 2009, there has been an estimated dip in revenues of $200 million annually; the state saw little growth in tax revenues in 2010.

-- Unemployment rose more than 4 percentage points between 2007 and 2010, forcing more Wisconsin residents on Medicaid and causing state Medicaid costs to rise.

-- A series of tax cuts passed since 2003 that cumulatively represent $3.7 billion and, by 2013, make up a $800 million-per-year reduction in tax revenues.

-- In addition, this year agency budget requests will rise $2.9 billion -- nearly two-thirds of which is for Medicaid, with much of that amount associated with replacing one-time federal Medicaid revenues the state received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

What is the real budget gap?
-- Walker's Democratic predecessor, Jim Doyle, estimated that in June of 2011, Wisconsin would still have a $10 million surplus, but Walker has said the state is facing a $137 million deficit today. Why the discrepancy?

-- Walker made a number of adjustments to Doyle’s estimates, mainly accounting for higher-than-expected Medicaid costs.

-- Walker also pushed through three tax cut bills negatively impacting projected tax revenues by $117 million -- the tax cuts went toward health savings accounts, deductions for relocated businesses, and exclusions for hiring new employees.

Wisconsin’s pensions
-- The pension system in Wisconsin is actually quite healthy. In fact, it was one of only four states (FL WA, and NY are the others) that entered 2008 fully funded.

-- State employees do not pay into their pensions.

Gov. Walker’s Budget Repair Bill
-- Pensions: Requires employees who pay into the Wisconsin Retirement System to contribute 50% of their annual pension payment an estimated 5.8% of salary; currently, employers make all pension contributions.

-- Health insurance: Requires state employees to pay at least 12.6% of the average cost of annual premiums—about double what they pay now.

-- On collective bargaining, it:
1) removes rights to bargain collectively for most of 175,00 state employees;
2) exempts most law enforcement, firefighters, and Wisconsin State Patrol;
3) does not allow employers to collect union dues in paychecks.

Political power in Wisconsin
-- State House is Republican controlled 57-38-1

-- State Senate is Republican controlled 19-14

Other nuggets
-- AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) started in Madison in 1932.

-- Wisconsin was the first state to give local government workers and teachers collective bargaining rights with the Public employee Collective Bargaining Act in 1959.

-- State government workers got collective bargaining in 1970s.

From NBC's Ali Weinberg and MSNBC's John Bailey
This year's Conservative Political Action Conference was full of trial balloons from potential 2012 Republican hopefuls. Here's a look at some of the most popular phrases - and former presidents - invoked during the three-day confab.