Posted on 12/24/2011 8:29:18 PM PST by no dems
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's campaign attacked Virginia's GOP primary election system on Saturday for keeping him off the state's March 6 Super Tuesday ballot. The state party said that Gingrich, who lives in Virginia, had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. The Gingrich campaign responded that "only a failed system" would disqualify Gingrich and other candidates. It said Gingrich would pursue an aggressive write-in campaign, although state law prohibits write-ins on primary ballots.
Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said in a statement: "We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice." However, state law says this about primary write-in campaigns: "No write-in shall be permitted on ballots in primary elections."
Forty-six delegates will be at stake in Virginia's Super Tuesday primary. That's a small fraction of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination. But they could prove pivotal in a close race, especially for a candidate like Gingrich, who expects to do well in Southern contests. Gingrich already missed the deadline to appear on the ballot in Missouri's Feb. 7 primary, though he insists it doesn't matter because the state awards delegates based not on the primary but on a Republican caucus held in March. "After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the party announced early Saturday on its Twitter feed.
Gingrich had been concerned enough to deliver his signatures personally. Rushing from New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Jan. 10, he held a rally Wednesday in Arlington, Va., where volunteers asked supporters to sign petitions.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
its not us..its the system...the system!!! the system? newt sounding like a lib again...its the system...occupy virginia?
Too many of the politically active voters are now employees of government at various levels, employees of services dependent on government spending and pensioners. That’s why the Gingrich campaign is blocked by corruption. We’ll have to starve the B. Become more self-sufficient. No sale, no vote.
It would seem more sensible to write off Virginia and move on to the next state rather than try to rewrite the rules ex-post facto. It sounds too much like what Al Gore tried to do in Florida in 2000.
It would seem more sensible to write off Virginia and move on to the next state rather than try to rewrite the rules ex-post facto. It sounds too much like what Al Gore tried to do in Florida in 2000.
Exactly. Just write VA off. Let your supporters organize and turn out en masse for Ron Paul and embarrass Mitt and the GOP Establishment. Ron Paul is not going to get the nomination anyhow.
The stench, it wreaks.
Godspeed, Patriots.
Petulance isn't Presidential.
WHAT? We are chatting about a primary, right?
No votes have been counted. right?
Are we not discussing getting a NAME on a Ballot?
So this is the same as counting actual Votes 3, 4, 5 times verses NOT ONE vote being allowed for the candidate of our choice?
I don’t agree with the “exactly” comment. but If Newt can not get on the BALLOT then Virginia Conservatives should ALL vote for Ron Paul. Drop mittens and his goons on their heads!
I will not vote for neither Paul nor Romney and I will refuse to give my promised $1000 donation to the RPV. Screw them all! Let Newt and Perry appeal and fix their problems period.
Believe me, I am NOT a PAUL voter. Never will be EVER.
I don’t want either to be elected under any circumstances.
It’s no one’s fault but Newt’s that he isn’t going to be on the ballot. His organizational skills suck.
Hey Darth Vader,
Listen, I understand your great disappointment at this point in time. That $1,000.00 donation you spoke of: Right now, you seem to be under great duress and unable to make a rational decision. So, just send that $1,00000 to me and I will see that it stays in good, Conservative hands.
LOL!!!
Meanwhile Newt leads in EVERY state but two, in the average polling nationally and in Virginia by 5!!
But I understand he's the tea party's, grassroots', and conservative's favorite CANDIDATE. And we can't have THAT running!
This story has not ended.
Merry Christmas!
This is my reply to a request to support NG:
1995 was about the time I watched a press conference on CNN with Newt. I distinctly remember it as Newt told us to read Alvin & Heidi Toffler’s book “The Third Way”.
I went out and got a copy right away as I was excited with Newt becoming Speaker and what I thought was the start of turning things around in this country.
I was shocked at what I read!
This book, endorsed by Newt advocates blending Communism with Capitalism.
Really Newt! Are you kidding me? (No)
In my very humble opinion, I don’t think much of that idea.
The Capitalistic System has served this country pretty well and Communism has been a failure in every country that has dabbled with it. If the hundreds of millions of dead humans that were victim’s of it could speak, I believe they would agree.
I will also say this. Newt was Speaker of the House when he endorsed this concept on a nationally televised press conference.
Communism is the arch enemy of our Capitalistic System. It destroys the human spirit, and untold millions of Human Beings have lost their lives due to it.
I only have one vote and to me it is sacred. I will guarantee you that I will never give it to someone that as a high level government official endorsed incorporating Communism into Capitalism.
To me he is unfit to hold office period.
SP
A perusal of this may be in order also ref. the above.
“treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution.
Article Three defines treason as only levying war against the United States or “in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort
Merry Christmas to you and yours, too!
Gingrich is not the TEA party favorite candidate, that is nothing but propaganda.
Hmmmmm...
Who was your favorite primary candidate in Iowa ‘08 - and this time in IA?
AHHHhhh I get it. He had over the 10,000 signatures and for the very first time machines check the addresses... All candidates but mitt, and Paul are on the ballot..
yep, all Newt’s fault..
Just in EVERY poll among Tea Party supporters.
And again.
I’ll put my iron boot up your a$$!
Rombot,
Yes! And again and again and again... Newt leads among conservatives, Tea partiers, and overall (outside of your Willard’s home states.)
BS
RPV sucks, sucks, sucks. The rats are more ethical than thr republicans in this state. Republicans for out of control cronyism, highways deteriorationg because the money goes to light rail and other agenda 21 initiatives, high speed rail, toll roads, etc etc. Makes me sick.
LOL!!! Come on Darth, it’s Christmas show a little love.
Merry Christmas
This is why choosing a candidate solely on what positions they hold, or even their ability to articulate them, is shortsighted. One must also consider the candidate’s ability to build an organization, manage it, and make sure the basics are covered (like getting on the ballot in all 50 states). Seriously, what does this say about his ability to handle the basics? Gingrich has never really show these characteristics. Even if he were to be elected President, he has no track record as a manager of a large organization, and would be nearly as incompetent as Obama in this regard.
This is why I pray that someday, a leader such as Allen West will make a bid for the presidency. Retired military leaders and former governors typically have a better time at managing their administrations than do former congressmen or senators.
I just love when some (this is not directed to you Nodems) FR’s post their ignorance of the electoral process with airhead postulations without first learning what the facts are. Remember the buzz going around because Gingrich left Iowa and headed back to his Virginia home ? He was running around trying to get on the Virginia ballot.
Gimgrich has been around long enough to know to submit 10-20% more signatures than required which I understand he did.. What he failed to get is 400 signatures from each of the states congressional districts which is peculiar to Virginia. If I’m right he might also have had to put up a candidate delegate for that district. And that has yet to be confirmed.
That’s the problem you run into when you make a presidential bid and you have limited funds and why some of these candidate start running years earlier than the election.... The process is geared to the rich and connected..
Every candidate for statewide office has to get 10,000 signatures. All the governor, lt, governor, and at. General candidates manage to do it. Every 4 years many presidential hopefuls do it (in 2008 Duncan Hunter failed).
It’s hard, and we occasionally debate having other ways because it doesn’t really prove anything (republicans tend to sign all the petitions because that way others will sign your petitions, and one of the odd things this year was that the campaigns seemed to eschew any cooperation).
But I was shocked that Perry didn’t get 15,000 so he didn’t have to worry. He was here in September, we had an election in November, and I never saw a Perry petition, and the campaign never answered e-mails about it. Perry had a former AG working for his campaign, and Kilgore knew exactly what had to be done, and failed to do it.
I’m not as surprised at Gingrich, although he does LIVE here.
Don’t believe everything you read on blogs. If you want to know the facts, I suggest waiting until after Christmas, for the RPV to put out a press release.
They counted the signatures, and went home for Christmas. A lot of people are making a lot of foolish speculation, none of which seems to be verifiable at this point.
The petitions all have a place for addresses, and I’ve heard over 2000 of the signatures Gingrich had gave no addresses. They are required.
Also, each petition page has to be signed by a registered voter, to affirm that they witnessed all the signatures, and I heard at least one petition collector didn’t qualify.
There was a simple way to avoid this — put in 15,000 signatures.
I think Gingrich expected the RPV to turn a blind eye to any irregularities in the signatures (I did, in fact, think so as well). Apparently they didn’t.
One of the volunteers who gave up their christmas to verify the signatures was KILLED in a car accident on the way home afterwards.
Newt progressive tendencies on display again here....
Blame anyone but your own mistakes newty. Sounds like a lib to me.
Sorry to you and Jim, but facebook is not how we put candidates on the ballot in Virginia, and we also don’t put candidates on the ballot because people throw tantrums, have fits, or think the rules are “too hard”.
If there was actual mischief, we will find it and correct it. If Perry and Gingrich didn’t turn in 10,000 valid signatures of registered voters, they didn’t qualify. Those are the laws, and last I looked conservatives were the ones who lived by the rule of law, not by emotion and protest.
What’s next, are you all going to come and do an “OWS” sit-in at RPV headquarters and hold your breath until you get your way? Seriously guys. I’m sure each candidate will make a formal request, and the RPV will consider those requests, but the organization is not RINO, it is not corrupt, it is not arbitrarily eliminating Newt because of some vast left-wing conspiracy.
All he needed was 15,000 signatures. Nobody could stop him from collecting that many signatures.
Newt has been around long enough to know that a slimy scumbag like Romney and a thoroughly corrupt GOP establishment will kick over rocks looking for any way they can to clear the deck for Mittens. I hope Newt has surrounded himself with people he can trust.
You "heard" wrong as you will officially find out next week, my Establishemt friend.
Thanks (for all the good you comments will do) I am almost bald from pulling my hair out today reading a lot of these threads and ill-informed comments! Sheesh, it was MY franchise and yours that were knocked out with all this, but folks from across the country are convinced it’s all a RINO conspiracy .. if only they knew the first thing about the people they are condemning. It was the Gingrich and Perry campaigns that messed up, no one else. They did too little, too late. Period.
Liked.
I'm no fan of Newt, but the only people who "qualified" for the ballot were those granfathered in based on the last presidential race. If noone was able to qualify under the new rules (this is the first time computer validation of addresses was used), then the system is broken.
There is more to the technicality than that, I am told. So many signatures have to be gotten from every precinct. Even in areas that are so Ratty they could be mistaken for laboratories.
You’re too inept, disorganized, and flat out stupid to get on the ballot in time and you blame the system? Yeah, Gingrich is the smartest man in the room. *eye roll* And to cavalierly toss around that Pearl Harbor analogy ...
Romney and Gingrich are our top two, huh? Sad. Just sad.
Wish some others (esp Sarah) had jumped in this race.
“occupy Virginia” hahahahah Good one. =)
I thought Newt was going back to Virginia to hear Callista sing in the church choir.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Newt will not be on the Missouri ballot because he filed late. He almost missed being on the Ohio ballot.
It’s not just Gingrich. Only Romney and Paul qualified. Considering how many other states Gingrich, Perry, et al qualified for the ballot, the Virginia system seems to be overly restrictive.
The Missouri "primary" is actually a straw vote, as no delegates will be at stake.
Missouri holds caucusses a week or two later and the results of that election will determine the delegate count.
Newt is eligible for the caucusses.
I’m not a big fan of Newt, but I am an attorney who has worked ballot access cases, and it would be a mistake to dump this all on Newt and all the other candidates who didn’t survive the signature war in VA. The RNC did push the whole national process forward. This is akin to rushing the passer. A hurried pass often leads to disaster. Newt and his team were doubtless trying to respond to all 50 fronts in the accelerated ballot access battle, and it may be they simply didn’t have the money to buy the ground troops necessary to pull off a highly technical play like VA. That’s not necessarily a demonstration of an organizational skills deficit.
BTW, Illinois is bad too. Not the same rules exactly, but if they were the same, good luck finding 40 let alone 400 eligible R’s in some districts. Big money and two or more years of advance planning with party cooperation could do it. Being the beneficiary of a recent popular surge, not so much. Advantage, money.
And so while I get the “rule of law” thing, please recall that here in America the highest law is the Constitution, and one of the highest functions of that constitutional law is to protect our right to put the people on the ballot that we believe best represent our interests. It is the very soul of the rule of law that the rules of the parties are and should be subordinate to that higher principle. If the majority of Republicans in VA want Newt or Bachmann or whoever else on the ballot, no party rule should be so onerous as to prevent that from happening. And any rule that prevents almost all of the viable national candidates from successfully jumping that signature hurdle is, on its face, adverse to that constitutional interest. This can and should be challenged by the excluded candidates as a group.
Was he a third way numbskull? Lordy...
The problem with some of these jackasses, is that they drop out of sight for a while, and then you forget what a dumb ass they were the last you heard of them.
If he really was a third way supporter, then he’s simply another Leftist(R).
Springfield Reformer, I think your insight, "it may be they simply didn’t have the money to buy the ground troops necessary to pull off a highly technical play like VA. " is probably the closest to the truth which will emerge in the near future.
The rules were the rules and were known to all or were discoverable by all. If candidates did not qualify under the rules it is not evidence of a conspiracy. It might be evidence of ineptness or it might be evidence that the process is so complicated and onerous that it requires time and money to fulfill which Gingrich did not have. We simply do not know.
If blame is to be accorded to Gingrich it is probably blame which should go not to events which occurred in the last few days but to events which led up to the abandonment of his campaign by his staff. The Virginia regulations require money and staff on the ground and Gingrich has been trying to compensate for an absence of both with a top-down, free media campaign. These events expose the vulnerability of trying to compensate and improvise across a continent containing 300 million people.
Nor do these events demonstrate that the "establishment" has it in for Gingrich or that the establishment GOP controlled these events. There is simply no such evidence. Whether or not the establishment GOP in Virginia is against Gingrich and for Romney cannot be concluded from these events or upon the facts as we now know them.
The fact that Gingrich is debarred from the primary election in Virginia (absent a court challenge which he should bring for a number of reasons) does not mean that Romney is destined to get the GOP nomination. Again, these events simply don't warrant that conclusion which has been repeatedly drawn on these threads. The number of delegates forfeited relative to the number needed for nomination is too trivial.
If we want to know how the Gingrich campaign is faring, we should look for reports about whether he has been able to reconstruct a staff and whether he has been able to set up state organizations. Ask whether money has been rolling into his campaign or not. These are the long-term factors which will determine the primary process leading to the nomination.
These events in Virginia are not apocalyptic, they are to a degree evidence of a shoestring campaign. The responsibility for the condition of the campaign ultimately is Gingrich's. They do not prove a lack of intelligence on Gingrich's part-as has been alleged of these threads-nor do they prove an inability to manage an organization. They might reveal an arrogance in assuming that he can run a top-down, personality oriented campaign.
But the evidence is not in.
Full disclosure: I support Gingrich.
They haven’t said he was disqualified on the technical aspect of not having 400 votes from each precinct. That standard is much easier to meet than the 10,000 valid addresses for registered voters. You could meet double that 400 standard and still not have 10,000 signatures, let alone valid ones.
One question I have is whether the campaigns have access to verify the addresses themselves. If not, then suddenly it seems like a very bad, arbitrary law that violates equal protection. They might be forced to turn in signatures without having any way of verifying whether the addresses match the ones on the voter rolls. Since voters of a higher economic status are more likely to be able to afford to move, it actually risks disenfranchising their right to get a candidate on a ballot moreso than poorer voters. Their addresses are more likely to be out-of-date.
Nevertheless there was a clear path to get on the ballot. Just get 400 signatures from each district and then 10,600 more signatures from the most friendly areas. It doesn’t matter how sloppy you got all those since they said they wouldn’t verify anything if you hit 15,000. Although I am still unclear as to whether that means they also waived verification that you had 400 from each district. If they didn’t check the addresses on Romney’s signatures, how did they verify which district those voters were in?
I do think that if Newt and Perry couldn’t muster the time or money to get the signatures, then I find it hard to believe they’ll have the resources for a court challenge, which has much less of a guarantee for a favorable outcome.
To me it makes more sense to lobby the legislature or the party to change the rule in a way that doesn’t favor any candidate or invalidate the effort of the ones who did get signatures. One way is to say, if a candidate wins any other state’s primary, they can be added to the Virginia ballot.
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