Posted on 12/26/2011 8:40:42 AM PST by TBBT
Richard Winger over at Ballot Access News has an EXTREMELY interesting post (link via here) on the mess that the Virginia Republican party has found itself in over… access to the ballot in Virginia. For those coming in late, background here and here: the very short version is that the VA GOP only certified Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for its primary ballot. Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich both had too many signatures tossed; Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann didn’t even try. Of the seven candidates, one (Romney) had more than enough signatures (15K) to bypass the verification process entirely. All of this has caused a lot of agitation among Republicans following the primary process, of course; and not just from people who disapprove of what the VA GOP has done. There has been a good deal of defending of the outcome; and one argument heavily used in this defense has been that the campaigns all knew the rules and that previous Republican campaigns were able to get on the ballot, so clearly a competent current Republican campaign should have done so.
One small problem with that: as Winger argues, the rules were allegedly drastically changed. In November of this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
You run North Carolina the way you want and let us Virginians run our state the way we want.
The article by Lynn Mitchell, by focusing on how the other staff felt about (guess they were all still there at party headquarters in Richmond) misleads everyone regarding poor Gail. To wit: The article we seem to all be citing was the first one out and it says in relevant part: "Many volunteers were on tap Friday to help certify petitions at RPV's headquarters, and this news was a shock after a long day and night. "
There was NO LONG DAY and NIGHT at 2 PM in the afternoon.
So, the case becomes curioser and curioser.
BTW, she's also from BUMPASS, not Louisa. Looks like they went overland from I95 rather than I64 and just ran into a big ol' tree that jumped out in the road at 'em just about a mile from home (at a 3 way intersection).
I checked Google Earth on the intersection and it's uphill in all three directions, so I'm not ruling out a wet road and colder temperature.
>> There are 5 million registered voters in VA. Each Congressional District contains about 650,000 people. Getting 400 registered voters from each district is not a high bar to set, particularly if you can get any voter regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof. >>
Any “bar” is high when there is only stupidity and bureaucracy behind the very reason to set it. If it takes ten minutes and three dollars to do - but is of zero value - then the “bar” is too high.
Campaigns cost a ton of money, and this little exercise in irrelevance is one reason why. This whole thing costs the campaigns and the state a ton of money and for what? Nothing constructive.
Anyone who complains about taxes and the cost of political campaigns but who supports this kind of mindless bureaucratic exercise is simply being intellectually foolish an hypocritical to an amazing degree.
And your post also misses another obvious point: that there are 2 or 3 congressional districts that are clearly VERY liberal so why should a candidate have to get a single signature there? This election is statewide with zero applicability to congressional districts.
I really don’t give a fk what your idea of “too high of a bar” is because you apparently have some sick (liberal) appreciation of bureaucracy and stupid rules for rules sake. The rule accomplishes zip zero nada and therefore should be challenged. And in this country, you challenge rules or laws when you have standing. Perry and Newt and three other campaigns now have standing.
Let the challenges begin. I predict VGOP loses - both the technical argument and the PR war.
Local highway maintenance is done by the State.
There's no party registration.
Other weird things ~ this used to be a one party state so a lot of this legislation is relatively new stuff. They used to take care of ALL candidate selection in tobacco smoke filled rooms, and frequently by no one other than members of the Byrd family. What's going on here is they decided setting minimum signature requirements ought to trim the list for the primary.
It's not at all a Northern Mind Set we are dealing with here ~ these guys are pure-D RINO, who grew up as fire and brimstone Democrats.
Democrats, current and former, always think it's acceptable to cheat in elections.
>> You run North Carolina the way you want and let us Virginians run our state the way we want. >>
More great logic from you. And using YOUR logic, I don’t ever want to hear a damned thing from you about Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Maxine Waters, Dick Durbin - because by YOUR logic, we need to let the folks of Mass, California, Nevada, California and Illinois worry about them and you can worry about just Virginia politics.
How’s that work for you?
I am just disgusted with this situation and watching these candidates is like watching the Keystone Kops! All of them are acting like rank amateurs and it’s embarrassing to see.
Jim Moran's district is remarkably Democrat, and so is Bobby Scott's.
The district I'm in is so close to 50/50 it isn't funny ~ so that's how we end up with Canolli, or is it Cannolini? Guy has a funny name.
Yes, everyone butt out and let the Virginia-for-Mitt cabal grease his skids! And you Virginians who don't like Mitt can stuff it - go vote for RuPaul if you must!
I actually think - or at least hope - Kabar wished he hadn’t typed that crap into his laptop as soon as he hit “POST.” He has made some reasoned arguments - even if I disagreed with them - but that was pathetic.
If you look at the results of the 2010 mid terms, you will see that in the 8th District, Moran (Dem) got 116,293 to Murray's (Rep) 71,108. An independent got 2,704 votes. There are 650,000 people in the District. Getting 400 of them is no big deal especially since part of the District is in Fairfax County, the same county where Newt lives. The Fairfax County Republican committee meets about once a month. We have over 600 dues paying members. Maybe Newt or one of his campaign people should have attended one of the meetings to collect some signatures.
The the 3rd district is no different really when it comes to collecting signatures. It covers all of the City of Portsmouth, parts of the Cities of Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Richmond, all of the counties of Charles City, New Kent, and Surry, and part of the counties of Henrico and Prince George.
2010 results: Bobby Scott (D) 114,656 70%, Chuck Smith (R) 44,488 27%, James Quigley Libertarian 2,383 2%. With close to 650,000 residents of the District, why is getting 400 signatures so difficult especially if you target Reps?
This whole fiasco is so damned corrupt it turns my stomach. My daughter is conservative and was looking forward to casting her primary vote for Newt. When I told her about this turn of events, especially how thoroughly underhanded it looks, she got so disgusted she’s considering not even bothering to vote in November.
>> This whole fiasco is so damned corrupt it turns my stomach. >>
I don’t know if it’s corrupt or not, but I respect those who think it is. But this demonstrates the main problem, which is unnecessary rules and regulations. All those do is set the stage for potential corruption and potential suspicion of corruption while raising the cost of everything. It puts bureaucrats in charge of real events, which is never a good thing.
There is no good reason for this 10 thousand rule to exist. The Dems ignore it in fact. The GOP is applying it unevenly with respects to certain candidates this cycle and with respects to all candidates in 08 and 00. It’s just a totally self inflicted wound by the VGOP.
Who’s your man, Mitt or Ron Paul?
Absolutely not.
In addition to the administering the law, it seems the board has also added the requirement to collect addresses and social security numbers.
You can check the site for more information about SBE
As a state agency, the General Assembly would have oversight along with the Governor, AG, and the courts. Add such requirements would require approval and be able to pass constitutional muster.
Give me a break. Each Congressional district in VA is composed of 650,000 people. Two of the 3 Congressional districts controlled by the Dems are here in Northern Viginia (Moran in the 8th and Connelly in the 10th) Both districts are partially in Fairfax County where Newt and I live. It was a very close election in 2010 in the 10th district. All Newt's people had to do was to go to a monthly GOP county meeting and collect the need signatures. The FCRC has over 600 members alone. Loudon and Arlington County plus Falls Church and Alexandria have their own GOP committees.
The state law is what it is. It was approved by the legislature, which must have felt that to be representative of the state and not just one area, a presidential candidate hopeful had to show statewide support. It also would eliminate the number of fringe candidates so that you had a more realistic slate of candidates. And the state foots the bill for administering the primaries.
I really don't understand the problem. It seems it has worked up until now. The following had no problem getting on the primary ballot:
2008 – Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, John Edwards; Ron Paul, John McCain, Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney.
2004 – Al Sharpton, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich, Dick Gephardt, Lyndon Larouche.
2000 – Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, George W. Bush, John McCain, Steve Forbes.
So, apparently, Lyndon Larouche, Al Sharpton, Alan Keyes, Fred Thompson and Dennis Kucinich ran better organized campaigns for their party nominations than Gingrich and Perry.
Its a fight to keep Romney out, but like nobama, we must get rid of Romney as well.
Romney may be a degree better than nobama, but we don’t need to find out the hard way. Short of the little guy from Mars, ANY other will be much better.
All those listed were elected by their constituents. I don't have any direct voice in their election save making contributions to their opponents. We do have the 10th amendment, which does give the states rights to decide on a whole range of issues including election laws. I do resent the continued use of the Voting Rights Act to allow the DOJ to get involved with the rights of 13 states for past perceived grievences. It is time to end this unfair law.
I could care less how NC conducts its Presidential primaries.
You are either hopelessly obtuse or pretending not to know facts or just such a bureaucratic microbe that you will not listen to reason.
You talk about “all Newt’s people had to do blah blah blah” - you miss the point that for months in the campaign he DID NOT HAVE PEOPLE — HIS CAMPAIGN WAS SLOW TO START. DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH. WHAT IS SO FRIGGIN HARD ABOUT THIS.
You say “the state law is what it is” and TOTALLY IGNORE THE FACT THAT IT HAS NEVER BEEN APPLIED LIKE THIS BEFORE. DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH. WHAT IS SO FRIGGIN HARD ABOUT THIS FOR YOU????????????????
You say it has worked until now. REALLY? NO ONE EVER CHECKED THE SIGNATURES BEFORE NOW. THERE HAD ONLY BEEN TWO CYCLES IT HAS BEEN USED BEFORE NOW. WORKED UNTIL NOW? NO ONE CHALLENGED IT UNTIL NOW BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T ENFORCE IT UNTIL NOW. DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH. WHAT IS SO FRIGGIN HARD ABOUT THIS CONCEPT FOR YOU????????
You say blah blah blah 2008 OBAMA KUCINICH ETC? The DEM PARTY GETS THE SIGNATURES FOR THESE FOLKS — DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH DUH WHAT IS SO FRIGGIN HARD FOR YOU ABOUT THIS???????????? None of those folks you snarkily - AND IGNORANTLY SAY - are better organized than Newt - had to get their own damned signatures you ninny.
Seriously. You are not even trying to have an adult converstaion, so go away.
Neither.
I’m sorry, I clearly over estimated your intellect and your ability to grasp an analogy. I will never swoosh one so far over your head again.
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