I’ve never heard of anything like this. What is going on? Sabotage? It’s not like nobody’s ever heard of Newt ... or Perry or Bachmann or Santorum. Newt resides in Virginia for God’s sake. It sounds like it would be the first thing you’d do in every state, collect the necessary signatures. Something fishy is going on here if this is true.
It is no secret that Virginia has the most stringent ballot requirements. 10,000 authenticated registered voter signatures, and these throughout the Commonwealth. It discriminates against blowhard, self-aggrandizing candidates with no executive ability. The types that won't be able to mount a sufficiently formidable campaign to defeat Obama.
All the articles have been saying they’re turning them in at the last minute, so it wasn’t the first thing anyone did apparently. I can understand the third-tier campaigns not having the money to spend. For Newt and Perry, I would guess it came down to the campaigns hiring a manager in each state who failed to live up to the job, or just hiring them too late and giving them an impossible task within the timeframe.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/21/news/la-pn-newt-gingrich-diverts-to-virginia-20111221
“Gingrich told reporters in Iowa this week that he expected to “barely” make it on the Virginia slate as well. Late Wednesday, it seemed that he had reached his goal. His campaign tweeted that it had cleared the 10,000 mark.”