No Gingrich, no Perry, no Bachmann, no Santorum, and no Huntsman. Having some experience with the primary petition process for Virginia I can tell you that it is extremely difficult to organize the kind of effort it takes to make the Va primary ballot. It takes 10,000 signatures of voters eligible to vote in Virginia and the have to stipulate that they plan to vote in the relevant primary (e.g. GOP if signing a petition for a GOP candidate). Out of those 10,000 signatures, the candidate must have at least 400 signatures in each of Va's 11 congressional districts. I order to avoid scrutiny of each signature, a candidate must provide 15,000 signatures with 600 from each district. We saw what happens when campaigns (Perry and Gingrich) flirt with that line.
The collection process is also cumbersome.
Here's a copy of the 8.5 x 11 petition form. Each page must be signed and notarized. Each page also needs to be organized by either city/county or congressional district. The bottom line is the person collecting signatures is making a significant commitment and needs to be highly motivated. There are two ways to find motivated people in the numbers required to make the ballot. You either need an army of true believers (Paul) or the money to pay collectors (Romney). The going rate is $1 per signature plus expenses and one or more full-time staffers just to oversee the collectors.
The real surprise isn't Gingrich-he surged late and got a very late start in Virginia. Perry, however, got started much earlier (before his poll collapse) and he was paying signature collectors. I think most insiders were very surprised he turned in fewer than 15k signatures.
The real news here is how unnecessarily difficult Va has made this process. I hate to parrot Gingrich's line (Im not a supporter) but there's something wrong with a system that excludes 5 of 7 candidates. There's no doubt that this is bad news for for both Gingrich and Perry who didn't need this story breaking before Iowa.