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 ...
Perhaps the reason why it wasn’t an issue in 2008 was due to the fact that the Romney team hadn’t figured out how to push up the primary elections in order to get this type of situation in his favor. Had the election dates not been screwed up then the VOTERS wouldn’t be stuck with the choice of a milquetoast squish and an racist loon with a cult following.
“The RNC should decertify the Virginia GOP and refuse to recognize their delegates to the convention unless they amend the rule to conform with reality.”
You honestly think the beltway GOP is anything but DELIGHTED with this last two standing cram down? This is a choice without an option for the distinction without a difference - and I would not trust the Virginia GOP apparatchiks anymore than I would trust the beltway GOP nomenklatura.
In Virginia, I would be all in for Ron Paul until the the primary is over.
There was no VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!
There were a bunch of volunteers (probably 90% Romney and Paul people) who decertified the signatures of thousands of Virginia citizens in order to disqualify MOST of the candidates in this election.
I believe you are going to find that there was a lot of hanky panky going on in the volunteer room.
There will be an investigation and an appeal. I bet that Perry, Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum and Huntsman will all be on the VA primary ballot in March.
Wait ... wait... if he gets Obama back we get Obama back.
Pick another punishment.
LOL - that would be comedy gold.
OK...just turn in 15,000 fake sigs and they’ll never be checked. It’s time to check Romney and Paul’s sigs...all of them.
Correctamundo. You sure got that right.
Somebody needs to ask Reinhold Preibus how he intends to deal with this.
his money paid for getting more than enough sigs so they doesn’t even have to be verified.. vote Ron Paul in Virginia because he’s got no chance of getting the nomination
Be prepared for the “rules are rules’ trolls to flame you. Funny how folks claim to be conservative - and claim to be against career politicians - and then hide behind a stupid bureaucratic rule designed to protect career politicians.
But the “lower than 75 IQ crowd” will be along to flame you any minute now.
What I’ve heard is that if a candidate submits more than 15000 signatures, none are checked. Romney submitted 15000, so none of his will be checked.
The only ‘Republican’ I intend to vote for is my Congressman, Tom Graves (freshman). The rest down-ticket from President can suck it. If anyone beside Romney is on the primary, he/she gets my vote (save Huntsman or Paul). If it’s Romney in the General election, I pass.
This primary is turning into a complete cluster.
Now this is one primary I could boycott and I think it would be a good idea for Virginia Republicans to boycott it too. If you could vote for a write-in, it would be different but unless you ACTUALLY want to vote for Romney or Paul, I’d stay home.
Yes, but fair is fair let them check all the sigs of Paul and Romney...see how well they fair. You can bet they’ve both have less than 10,000 valid sigs.
Not one vote cast, and we already need a recount.
Your right if they cannot even manage to get on the ballot what chance do they have against the dirtbag in the wh
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.