Tancredo sitting out early W.Va. contest

Rep. Tom Tancredo’s (R-Colo.) name will not be on the ballot when West Virginia Republicans announce their choice for president on the afternoon of Feb. 5, or Super-Duper Tuesday.

The deadline for the state’s unique nominating convention was Sept. 1, and Tancredo joined wealthy Chicago Republican John Cox in failing to get on the ballot.

{mosads}Every other Republican candidate, including soon-to-announce former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.), met the filing deadline.

The final list also included a couple of surprises.

Perennial candidate and former Ambassador Alan Keyes joined the list of candidates, apparently thanks to supporters who want to make sure everything is in place should he decide to run again after his embarrassing 2004 Senate loss to Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Also on the list was Gene Zarwell. An e-mail to an address listed on his website was returned.

A Tancredo spokesman said the state “is not a top priority” like the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“West Virginia is not a main target for this campaign,” spokesman Alan Moore said. “As far as our strategy goes, it wasn’t in our interest to participate.”

The state party has gained national attention this year with its plan to host a nominating convention early in the day where a winner could be announced as early as 2:30 Eastern time on primary day.

The state’s counties will vote for delegates to the state convention who essentially will be running as surrogates of the candidate they support. Those delegates will then vote at the convention for the candidate they favor.

There will be a first round of voting in the morning to narrow the field to three candidates, an hour break and then a second round to determine a winner.

The results could provide significant momentum for candidates, especially on the West Coast where California voters could know the West Virginia winner by 11:30 in the morning.

Convention chief executive Robert Fish said Tuesday the party is thrilled that the great majority of the field met the Sept. 1 deadline and appears to be taking the state’s contest seriously.

“This is a really, really good result,” Fish said. “Whoever wins will have won a major victory.”

The convention will only be in a position to award 18 of the state’s 30 delegates to a candidate on Feb. 5. Three are designated to the state’s national committee members, and the remaining nine are determined by the state’s formal primary in May.

Moore said Tancredo plans to compete in the latter primary.

Fish said the state convention has had consistent contact with every potential candidate, even those who have yet to declare, to remind them of the filing deadline. They had an initial briefing with candidates and the media in early June.

To get on the ballot, the campaigns or their supporters had to pay a $5,000 filing fee.

Moore said the Tancredo campaign had its paperwork filled out and ready to go, but decided at the last minute there was no advantage in competing in the early contest.

Fish said that decision could come back to hurt the congressman or Cox.

“In a larger sense, if either of these people were to come around and win the nomination, then that [would affect] how they do in West Virginia [in a general election],” Fish said.