Posted on 12/24/2011 8:20:24 AM PST by shield
For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won’t contain the word ‘Mormon’ anywhere in their description, by the way). The current defenses to all of this are “rules are rules” and “any campaign that couldn’t follow them are by definition poor campaigns:” I will leave it to the individual reader to decide just how either argument will play in, say, Peoria; I am frankly of the opinion that the above defenses are well-suited towards reassuring Romney and/or Paul voters – and will do very little to persuade the other 60-65% or so of likely Republican primary voters.
But since I’m telling Mitt Romney what won’t help his situation, it kind of behooves me to tell him what might.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
I’m sure others covered this, but did Newt get on Ohio and Missouri? Heard he may not have made the deadline.
How is it that the Republican Party can impose a requirement that is not embodied in an actual statute?
I couldn't have done a better job of expressing how I fell about the two “front-runners.” Thanks!
C. Edmund Wright thinks that by insulting or ridiculing someones opinion is going to win you over to his point of view. As I'm sure you already know it does just the opposite and makes one think that he is emotionally unstable. That may not be the case, but it sure comes across that way.
>> OK then they knew the state of play beforehand and didn’t get the job done. Half the battle is knowing the obstacles the second half of the battle is adapting to them. Apparently Newt and the others only fought half the battle.
And that as we say in the Biz is the facts. Thanks for proving the point.>>
You have stepped into a logical quagmire of your own making. Both Newt and Perry had more than 10 thousand sigs - meaning they DID follow the rules. Yet, the Virginia bean counters - perhaps due to their own leanings - have ruled many hundreds of signatures not valid. But you, proving you are a bureaucratic liberal - automatically side with the bean counters - even though the entire battle was fought.
And, you are assuming that a rule is valid and makes sense as long as everyone knows it in advance. That is nonsense. There are EPA and IRS and INS rules that everyone knows but they are total bullsh-t - and we allow folks to content on these grounds when those rules are not met.
And then there’s the notion you have that an underdog or late campaign should be disqualified. Any one who has ever run anything, and from your post I am quite sure you have not - knows that when resources are scarce you have to fight the battle ahead of you so you can live to fight another day.
Had Perry or Newt or Bachmann spent the time and resources necessary to get this stupid Virginia requirement done - then you would have been likely the first to bitch that they misappropriated resources when they should have been spending time in Iowa and New Hampshire and SC and Florida.
You have talked yourself in circles and come out supporting a system set up to reward perpetual candidates and rules loving unaccountable bureaucrats.
The question is why he failed to comply with the existing rules. IOW, who was enforcing and interpreting the rules.
WHo is your candidate????
Romney, Paul or Obama?
Merry Christsmas to you Trisha!!
It’s cold here too, no ice today but have had some in the past few days. Just glad the wind died down, hate it!
All the best to you and yours ;)
We need to elect president by a runoff process. No parties, no nothing. Keep having ballots until somebody gets 50% of the vote.
I don't think it is too much to ask of serious campaign to pay attention to the calendar and the rules. Hell, Newt lives in VA. He could have cultivated local poltical contacts like Romney and Paul have done. Perry was a day late and a dollar short as well even though Kilgore was supporting him.
Part of the primary process is to winnow out candidates who can't build a good ground game or raise money. Virginia, then, has done the nation a service. It has winnowed the Republican field in advance of, and with greater precision than, the place-proud voters of Iowa and New Hampshire. The press may not be aware of this yet, and certainly the partisans of each campaign will be loathe to admit it, but tickets to the Republican presidential nomination were issued at RPV headquarters in Richmond, Virginia last night.
Thank you! The best to you and yours as well, friend! :)
Amen Brother!!!
The problem is we do not have a real opposition party in our country.
I didn't accuse anyone of sabotage I said the process is dirty from the gitgo...
And the reason I say such is because the Establishment sets the rules so their handpick candidates have the advantage in the Primary process. And my point is EVERYONE IN THE GAME KNOWS THIS. And if you are aware of such then you must adapt to the parameters that are in play or lose. Newt and the others didn't adapt in Virginia and got hosed.
BTW I have waaay more problems with Paul as POTUS than just earmarks. I agree with him on many points but on many other things he is a dyed-in-the-wool whackjob and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
But the poster you are attacking, is not the one who is “emotionally unstable”.
Let's see what Jim Robinson thinks?
Sadly it’s not. Newt and Al go back a long ways.
The fact that if you manage to present more than 15,000 signatures that none of the 15,000 need to be legitimate makes the rule arbitrary.
Since the rule is arbitrary, it violates the Equal Protection clause and since it discriminates against honest politicians in favor of crooks (who can gather 15,000 fraudulent signatures in a single day) it violates the due process rights of the candidates whose petitions have been invalidated.
We have not seen the end of this story.
Don’t tell that to a Newt worshipper. I reminded a Newt worshipper about al and Nancy and Newt and caught hell. That was not true.
>> I don’t think it is too much to ask of serious campaign to pay attention to the calendar and the rules. >>
Your argument is sound, except that it assumes rules and calendar requirements are reasonable. And even if the rules are reasonable - then one would still have to admit that they favor long time perrennial candidates, the richer candidates, the more well connected candidates, and the early starting candidates.
What Virginia’s rules have done is to apply ole timey requirements to an age when a candidate can - and should be able to - become viable late in the process thanks to the internt, the cable debates, social networking, etc.
Then there’s the reason for the rules - and do the rules actually accomplish the winnowing they were designed for. Or do they miss that mark?
There are seven candidates who meet any common sense “viability” requirement. These rules winnowed out 5 of those. Common sense shows that perhaps the winnowing process is flawed.
It’s not like it bumped out everybody but Johnson and Roemer.
You are dead wrong. The VA GOP is as far from corrupt as it gets; I’d put its integrity up against any party in any state in the union.
These requirements were not written last week. The Perry and Gingrich campaigns knew what they needed to do to get on the ballot but didn’t do it. End of story. Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere.
But you are defending the very thing that will guarantee a Romney win and eventual Obama second term. Something about you really stinks.
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