As of right now, Romney is precisely where the Santorum Path to Delegate Victory campaign strategy memo of March 10th expected he'd be (with the exception of winning Wisconsin).  Between now and June 26th, the only true winner-take-all states remaining are Delaware, Montana, New Jersey, and Utah, the remainder being either proportional or by congressional district.  Thus, though I'll grant that the probability is getting more remote by the day, it's still entirely possible for either Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul can still actively prevent Romney from accumulating a pre-convention majority.

As a brief sidebar, those of you interested in really throwing a monkey wrench into Willard's coronation train should go to Newt's Network, register an account, and spend some quality time this weekend reaching into Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and/or Rhode Island.

Getting back to topic, recently the MIGOP Credentials Committee met on April 12th and decided (unanimously, I'm told) to reallocate the national convention delegates committed to Rick Santorum as "uncommitted."  The rationale for the committee's decision is pretty solid.  According to Rule 19-E of the Republican Party of Michigan Rules for Selection of Delegates and Alternates to the 2012 Republican County, State and National Conventions, a candidate who suspends his campaign for Republican nominee for POTUS loses his otherwise committed national convention delegates, and they are officially considered "uncommitted."

Yeah, this time the MIGOP Credentials Committee actually did it by the book . . . so naturally I'm wondering what the hell they're up to.

Given that I've received word as recently as this afternoon that no less a pro-Romney luminary than Dennis Lennox is attempting to round up tea party support to run as an "uncommitted" Congressional District ONE national convention delegate, I wouldn't put it past Romney's Michigan campaign crew to "fifth column" the now-uncommitted delegation slots.  The strategy, apparently, is to pack the delegation with pro-Romney people, which would thus hand the remaining 14 delegates over to Michigan's "native son."  (Apparently, stealing one delegate wasn't enough for these thieves.)  So I suppose that we now need to get the word out among those attending the district conventions in districts that Santorum originally won (CD-01, CD-02, CD-03, CD-04, CD-06, CD-07, and CD-13) and alert them to be leery of the allegiances of those attempting to be seated as "uncommitted" national convention delegates.

Like we don't have enough to do.

That same rule, by the way, provides a mechanism for a candidate to appeal the Credentials Committee decision to the full State Committee, and Rick Santorum's campaign attorney did so a few days ago.  I was talking with a couple of State Committee members the other day, and one of them said that he was expecting to hear from Chairman Schostak within 48 hours convening a meeting of the full committee before the end of the month.

Sure enough, first thing this morning, Schostak sent out an e-mail to the entire state committee, convening a special meeting of the Michigan Republican State Committee (MRSC) on Saturday, April 28th at 9:00am at The Lexington Lansing Hotel.  The purpose of this meeting is to review an appeal filed by the Santorum Campaign concerning the suspension of their campaign requiring the Michigan Republican Party to label delegates bound to Santorum as "uncommitted," as required by the Republican Party of Michigan Rules for Selection of Delegates and Alternates to the 2012 Republican County, State and National Conventions.

Now, given that, according to Michigan's delegate allocation rules, the national convention delegates are only bound for the first ballot on the convention floor, I really don't see what the big hassle would be with allowing Santorum to keep his bound delegates.  Me?  I think we ought to get busy calling up every member of the MIGOP State Committee that we can get in touch with, and encourage them to override the Credentials Committee decision of last week.