We’ll have to agree to disagree about the party wanting to control who gets on the ballot. The party gains nothing by having a limited selection, and I am sure going into the verification process everyone involved assumed they would emerge with four candidates. Tho, I would also bet there was a good deal of concern when Perry and Gingrich presented under 12K raw signatures.
I agree Cuccinelli should have talked around his idea privately before going public with it, and then having to backtrack, but I don’t believe he was pretending. He was trying to come up with a viable solution, and the way to do that ultimately is through the legislature, not the party or the courts.
But the idea of changing the law AFTER the contest is against everything we conservatives claim to believe in. Actually, the ‘rule of law’ IS more important than allowing any and all candidates on the ballot, and the public’s right to vote for them. It’s up to the candidates, not the state or the party, to qualify to get on the ballot.
Think of this: after the 2000 election, all the moaning and groaning from the Dems that has not stopped to this day, with “selected, not elected,” “Bush STOLE the election,” etc. After the fact, their argument as and is: Gore won the popular vote. As if he didn’t enter the contest full well knowing it’s about electoral votes. It wasn’t till that election that many voters even had a CLUE that the president is elected by the Electoral College, and that they, the voters, are NOT voting for president but for a slate of electors to the Electoral College. Much less did they know that in each state the EVs go to whomever has the majority of votes in that state. But, oh, they wanted that whole Electoral College thing changed retroactively. For the benefit of the majority of voters nationwide. It just doesn’t work like that if we are to live under the Rule of Law.
What really happened but you must listen to Mark Levin.
I know you want to believe in The Repbublican Party of Virginia but please listen.