“Then, just for the hell of it, I hope all the anti-Romney forces join together and vote for Kooky-dude and he wins the VA Primary and leaves Romney looking stupid.”
I can see a fantastic backfire in the making, if Paul wins both Iowa and Virginia. Wouldn’t be able to chalk it up to a one-state fluke. Then in a few months everyone can express confusion over how he got the nomination when no one wanted him.
With the exposing, this week, of his Newsletters from the ‘90s that espoused Anti-Semitism, racism, anti-gay and anti-government rants Ron Paul will not go very far. He might not make it to VA. His name will be on the ballot, but he’ll be out of it. Not to worry.
Yes - NEVER vote for Paul, joke or not. Those folks who don’t want Romney should do a write-in - a primary’s the time for that.
For God’s sake - no Ron Paul EVER. He’s clueless on Islam, delusional about Iran and would endanger us (and Israel) as much ad BHO.
Remember the French elections a few years ago when Le Pen and the National Front actually took second-place and made it into the runoff election? Le Pen might not be radical by American standards, but by French standards he's viewed about like rational Republicans view Ron Paul, and to see Ron Paul as the only person besides Romney on the ballot would be a deep embarrassment to everybody else who **DIDN'T** qualify.
I defended Gingrich when he didn't get on the Missouri primary ballot, which is an old-fashioned “beauty contest” that carries no delegates and is unrelated to the Missouri Republican caucuses which select the actual GOP delegates.
However, Virginia is not a minor state, and their ballot is a real race. On top of that, it's next door to the media machine of Washington, D.C., which will give this fiasco lots of play. The spectacle of a primary ballot with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul as the only candidates is enough to make Republicans look like unprepared idiots.
I've said it over and over again. How did we, as conservatives with a stellar opportunity to defeat Barack Obama, get ourselves into this mess? We have screwed up, big time, and now we're stuck with a list of candidates that simply do not represent our best and brightest — and it now appears that many of our candidates aren't even bright enough to get on the ballot.
This should not have happened. Only Barack Obama can be happy about this news.
24 posted on Thursday, December 22, 2011 8:48:24 PM by Smokin’ Joe: “Interesting. So, fellow FReepers, in a contest between Willard and Ron Paul, who would you vote for?”
Until today, I said I could not imagine anything that would cause me to vote for a third party.
Having to choose between Romney and Paul would do it, because it would show the party has abandoned core principles without even a viable conservative minority. The primary purpose of government is to protect its people. Romney, in the recent past, was a backer of baby-killlers. Paul wants to gut our national defense. Both are unacceptable.
I never imagined that we'd be in this position. As another Freeper put it, where do these people get their campaign staffs? As a high school student many years ago before the internet and cell phones, I was responsible for running a half-dozen precincts with a bunch of volunteers under me. I know what it takes to get petition signatures. I don't know Virginia, but I am fairly confident that even as a high school student, I could have done a better job of gathering signatures than these three Republican candidates apparently did.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THIS. PERIOD.
Now let's move on and figure out how to recover from this fiasco.