Delaware brings fewer delegates than other February 5 states, putting it lower on the priority list than New York, California, Texas and others. Still, one of the first tasks of any presidential campaign is to determine ballot access rules in order to actually make it to a convention. If anything goes wrong, it can be evidence of a serious organizational problem.

Fred Thompson, then, might find it helpful to take another look at his organization: Volunteers and staff collected just 281 signatures for the Delaware primary, First State Politics reports. That's short of the 500 signature bar he needed to reach to get on the ballot, and many are said to have been rejected because the signers were not registered Republicans. Meanwhile, every candidate other than Duncan Hunter, including Tom Tancredo, managed to scrounge up the signatures necessary to gain access to the ballot.

Thompson has effectively focused his entire campaign on Iowa, a state which, thanks to the caucuses, requires more organization than most. If his campaign can't manage 500 signatures in Delaware, Thompson could be in for a rude surprise on January 3.