Mark Levin: Virginia Ballot Fiasco Is Intentional, To Help Romney

http://www.therightscoop.com/mark-levin-virginia-ballot-fiasco-is-intentional-to-help-romney/ ^ | Jan 2, 2012 | Mark Levin

[sheikdetailfeather]

Mark Levin, being a disenfranchised Virginian, weighed in on the Virginia ballot fiasco, saying that the compliance rules were changed a month ago and that it is not the fault of the candidates. In fact, he believes the rules were changed to help shove Romney down our throats.

[sheikdetailfeather]

From last nights radio show.

[Stepan12]

The great one weighs in on the issue.

[Stepan12]

And as another freeper suggested, we have to unite behind Newt to defuse Mittens.

[Diogenesis]

Romney is ALWAYS against conservatives and the GOP.

Romney for Obama in 2008

Late in October, The American Spectator's The Prowler revealed:
"Former Mitt Romney presidential campaign staffers…
have been involved in spreading anti-Palin spin to reporters, seeking to diminish her standing after the election.
'Sarah Palin is a lightweight, she won't be the first, not even the third, person people will think of when it comes to 2012,'
says one former Romney aide…
'The only serious candidate ready to challenge to lead the Republican Party is Mitt Romney.
"Some former Romney aides were behind the recent leaks to media, including CNN, that Governor Sarah Palin was a 'diva' and was going off message intentionally."

---

The Palmetto Scoop reported: "One of the first stories to hit the national airwaves was
the claim of a major internal strife between close McCain aides and the folks handling his running mate Sarah Palin."
"I’m told by very good sources that this was indeed the case and that a rift had developed, but it was between Palin’s people and the staffers brought on from the failed presidential campaign of former Gov. Mitt Romney, not McCain aides."
"The sources said nearly 80 percent of Romney’s former staff was absorbed by McCain and these individuals were responsible for what amounts to a premeditated, last-minute sabotage of Palin."
… aides loyal to Romney inside the McCain campaign, said The Scoop, reportedly saw
that Palin would be a serious contender for the Republican nomination in 2012 or 2016, which made her a threat to another presidential quest by Romney.

---

"These staffers are now out trying to finish her off ….hoping it would ingratiate themselves with Mitt Romney."

---

"Who's the Palin Leaker from the McCain Campaign?
National Review Online The publication of a Vanity Fair profile of Sarah Palin
appears to have opened old wounds in the McCain campaign.
... the source of the “Diva” leak was Nicolle Wallace’s husband."

---

"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"

"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"

"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"

"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"

"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"

---

[sheikdetailfeather]

I totally agree. Even Fox news quoted the liberal nonpartisan tax center to bash Newts tax plan the other day. What a crock for a news station they are becoming!

[katiedidit1]

Absolutely and if the voter’s can’t see through it they are dumb. The election in Virginia is FIXED ...Perry knows it and Newt knows it. GOP establishment is going to cram RomObama down or throats or else...millions, millions and millions along with promises of cabinet positions and more...Yes, Romney would buy the White house and appears to be doing just that...the fix is in

[KeyLargo]

This feels like Mc-lame deja vu all over again.......

Wall street wants Romney and the Dims are salivating that he will be the nominee.

OPINION
JANUARY 3, 2012

Mr. Good Enough

Mitt Romney lost the nomination in 2008 because of his lack of focus and a reputation for shifting his message. He’s learned something this time around.

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Clinton, Iowa

Voters aren’t convinced by Mitt Romney. They’re not certain of his convictions; they wonder if he is the leader for these times; they’re not sold on his policies or his personality. Yet voters may be about to make the former Massachusetts governor the Republican nominee for the presidency. Mark this down as the triumph of strategy over inspiration.

As Iowans head to their caucuses Tuesday, Mr. Romney has come from behind to lead in the polls. A victory here—where he was once written off—followed by a coup in New Hampshire could well knit up the nomination. That outcome would be the result of a lot of luck, mistakes by his rivals, and a shrewd—and ruthless—campaign by Mr. Romney himself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204632204577130570667022372.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[montag813]

Where there's smoke there's fire:

(1) The VA Lt Gov heads the VA Romney campaign
(2) Gov. McDonnell has made no secret he wants the VP slot, according to Richmond chatter, to which I am sure VA resident Levin has a very direct line

[montag813]

And as another freeper suggested, we have to unite behind Newt to defuse Mittens.

It might help if NEWT united behind Newt. He sat on his ass in Iowa while he was decimated on the air. So far, he has not impressed on the stump as he has in the debates.

[be-baw]

Hmmm...this morning I saw Romney being interviewed on Fox News about being confident he will get the ballots he needs, but then corrected himself to say votes. I wondered at the time if he inadvertently let slip that he was rigging ballot boxes...

[lahargis]

To me, it is more important to impress on the stump that in the debates. But of course, that is just my opinion.

[matthew fuller]

"In fact, he believes the rules were changed to help shove Romney down our throats. "

BINGO!

[Matchett-PI]

Levin is EXACTLY right. Just to reiterate from my post last month on FR:

12/25/2011
My post:

To: shield
“This was changed in May however there is precedent in VA for the court overruling the State Board of Elections rules to allow candidates on the ballot. This is not over.”

I saw John Fund on Fox & Friends this morning talking about this situation. He said this is going to go to court and the court will come down on the side of “the voters” (as it always has) therefore, Perry and Newt will wind up on the ballot.

84posted on Sunday, December 25, 2011 9:51:56 PMby Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2825002/posts?page=84#84

Virginia May Have Improperly Excluded Signatures From Perry, Gingrich. a Recount May Be Needed!
http://www.varight.com/news/virginia-may-have-improperly-excluded-signatures-from-perry-gingrich-a-recount-may-be-needed/

Various reports have stated that the signatures turned in by Newt Gingrich included at least 2,000 that were invalidated because there was no address given with the signature.

If this were a Virginia Statewide office, that would be correct. But this is a Presidential Primary. And while the rules are similar, they are actually addressed in two separate sections of the Virginia Code.

There is a requirement in a Statewide General Election that the address be included, but there is no such requirement for a presidential primary. The number of signatures are the same, 10,000 and 400 per Congressional District. But the address requirements are different.”

Virginia 2011 Candidate for Legislature has Impact on Pres. Primary (Newt & Perry have a case?)
Ballot Access News ^ | 12-25-2011 | Richard Winger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2825002/posts

There are currently many news stories and blog discussions about the Virginia presidential primary ballot access law. Some large blogs, such as Red State, have over 300 comments about the story. Some defend the current Virginia ballot access laws on the grounds that in past presidential elections, a fairly large number of Republican presidential primary candidates managed to qualify.

But what has not been reported is that in the only other presidential primaries in which Virginia required 10,000 signatures (2000, 2004, and 2008) the signatures were not checked. Any candidate who submitted at least 10,000 raw signatures was put on the ballot.

In 2000, five Republicans qualified: George Bush, John McCain, Alan Keyes, Gary Bauer, and Steve Forbes. In 2004 there was no Republican primary in Virginia. In 2008, seven Republicans qualified: John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Alan Keyes.

The only reason the Virginia Republican Party checked the signatures for validity for the current primary is that in October 2011, an independent candidate for the legislature, Michael Osborne, sued the Virginia Republican Party because it did not check petitions for its own members, when they submitted primary petitions. Osborne had no trouble getting the needed 125 valid signatures for his own independent candidacy, but he charged that his Republican opponent’s primary petition had never been checked, and that if it had been, that opponent would not have qualified. The lawsuit, Osborne v Boyles, cl 11-520-00, was filed in Bristol County Circuit Court. It was filed too late to be heard before the election, but is still pending. The effect of the lawsuit was to persuade the Republican Party to start checking petitions. If the Republican Party had not changed that policy, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry would be on the 2012 ballot.

The Democratic Party of Virginia has been opposed to the strict law on primary ballot access, and has been in the habit of collecting signatures for all Democratic presidential candidates recognized by the party. In 2008, the state party collected 7,300 signatures for all its candidates, thus easing the burden on them and requiring them to collect only 4,000 to 5,000 on their own.

<>//<>

HillBuzz 12/26/2011

Comments section:
http://hillbuzz.org/hillbuzz-open-thread-boxing-day-2011-2011#idc-container

Layla · 4 hours ago

.......People in Virginia are abuzz with the news that Rick Perry’s and Newt Gingrich’s names will not appear on the primary ballot. There will be only two candidates for whom to vote: Ron Paul and Mitt Romney. Write-ins are not allowed in the Virginia primary. The Virginia GOP, which is responsible for verifying signature petitions, is going to catch a lot of flak over this, since this is the first year the signatures have been fully verified - by either the DNC or the RNC. This is also the first year that the voting rolls have been computerized, so it was not as painstaking to verify signatures in previous years. Also noteworthy, though, is that this is the first year the strict rules for getting on the ballot are going to be enforced. Ever since the Dems changed the rules in 1999 to make it harder to get on the ballot, the rules have not been enforced. In fact, the DNC has given waivers to its candidates who did not obtain enough signatures. I would not want to be manning the RNC phones this week.

Kevin DuJan · 3 hours ago

The RNC’s phones should receive Hell all week. Absolute Hell. Something tells me we need to help make that happen.

Layla · 2 hours ago

I am in a wait-and-see mode, Kevin. There is no doubt the RPV is in tight with the elitist Republicans. The Lt. Gov. of Virginia is Romney’s campaign chair and personally delivered his petitions. No judge in Virginia is appointed due to legal accument or adherence to the U.S. or State Constitutions - they are appointed based on their efforts to get the appointer elected. From what I have been able to glean from research, the minimum number is signatures is 10,000 with at least 400 signatures from each of the 11 districts. BUT, if you turn in over 15,000 signatures, they are not verified. Romney and Paul did. ..... Romney started collecting signatures this past summer. Ron Paul started gathering signatures in September. Bachmann, Santorum, and Huntsman did not even try to get on the ballot in Virginia. Perhaps it is not a battleground state after all.

Lady Penguin says:
2011/12/26 at 8:23 am

.....I live in Virginia. Everyone is making a big deal about Newt, but the Perry situation is also noteworthy. Jerry Kilgore, his Va. campaign manager, is a former Va. Attorney General (2001-2005), also ran for governor in 2005 but lost to Democrat Tim Kaine. He should have known, and paid close attention.

That said, the GOP looks bad with this…and have made Va. irrelevant in the primaries. Many people will stay home and not vote if the choices are Romney and Paul. The establishment ignores the fact that McCain got as “many” votes as he did because of Sarah on the ballot – without her, his loss would have been far greater. IOW, we’re not just going to go for Romney…

bttt

[Matchett-PI]

You wrote: “This feels like Mc-lame deja vu all over again.......”

bttt

“....If Iowans want to see the second coming of John McCain....”:

RedState Morning Briefing (Eric Erickson)
For January 3, 2012
http://www.redstate.com/erick/tag/morning-briefing/

Good Morning From Iowa.

Objectively on the ground here, it is doggone cold. Also, it seems the Santorum surge has ended, or at least stalled. On CNN last night, Mary Matalin noted that a number of people unconnected to campaigns say the surge is stalled out.

The caucuses will be tonight. For years the media has treated Iowa as the Super Bowl, but this year, with proportional delegates, it really is more the pre-season. This could go on a while. My guess is that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are first and second. Rick Santorum or Rick Perry will probably be third. Santorum because of his late surge. Perry because of organization.

If Iowans want to see the second coming of John McCain, they’ll support Rick Santorum like they supported Huckabee and we’ll get a moderate named Romney who won’t really fight in the general election.

As Dan McLaughlin notes in the top post this morning, if Iowans hand third place to Rick Perry, they’ve not only given him a guaranteed life line (one he’d probably get in fourth place too), but they have also ensured he will be the GOP nominee.

I’ll be bringing you updates throughout the day from the ground in Des Moines, IA both here and on radio from 9am to 1:00 p.m. ET. You can listen here. Tonight, I’ll be on CNN starting at 6pm ET.

Let the games begin.

1. The Conservative Race In Iowa

There are 2,286 delegates awarded in the GOP primaries and caucuses; the nomination thus requires wrapping up 1,143 delegates. Between them, Iowa and New Hampshire award 10 delegates; South Carolina and Florida, the other two states voting later this month, award 75. By contrast, three states (California, Texas and New York) award a combined 422 delegates, more than a third of the total needed to win. So, the race is far from over after New Hampshire, and as long as there is credible opposition, it can go on for quite a while after South Carolina and Florida as well.

That said, the early states are traditionally a test of strength that helps winnow the field to the more serious contenders, especially those with the fundraising ability and appeal beyond a narrow niche to make a serious effort to win the nomination. But three of the seven candidates now in the race are pretty much guaranteed to go beyond Iowa. First, Mitt Romney: Romney would like to win Iowa, and could be embarrassed if he finishes third (lower is very unlikely), but no matter what happens, Romney’s money, his appeal to the moderate wing of the party, and his establishment support will carry him to New Hampshire, where he is heavily favored to win easily. Second, Ron Paul: Paul could do well in Iowa as a protest vote if there are a lot of independents and Democrats re-registering tomorrow on caucus day, but his hard core of support and idosyncratic appeal guarantee that he will be in the race as long as there’s a race, regardless of how he does in any contest, yet with no chance of ever winning. And third, Jon Huntsman: Huntsman has placed all his chips on New Hampshire and already plans on finishing a distant seventh in Iowa. The only effect Iowa has on Huntsman is indirect: if Romney looks weak coming out of Iowa, Huntsman can ratchet up his efforts to convince New Hampshire moderates that Romney is fatally flawed.

Where Iowa could matter a lot, however, is in sorting out the four candidates running as the field’s conservatives: Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. (Let’s leave aside for the moment the arguments over who can claim the term “conservative”; clearly this is the role in the field all four are pursuing). They represent a caucus-within-a-caucus, and even though they are likely to be separated 1-4 by a relatively small number of votes, their order of finish could have an outsized impact on the race, eliminating anywhere from 1-3 of them from the field.

Let me go out on a limb: if Perry finishes third in Iowa, he’ll be the nominee. He’s the guy best suited by money, organization and resume to capitalize on a strong Iowa showing, which is why Romney’s media allies have been talking up Santorum’s momentum instead.

Please click link for the rest of the post: http://www.redstate.com/erick/tag/morning-briefing/

[mrsmith]

Wrong Mark:

“...Candidates were officially informed of the 15,000 rule in October 2011, well in advance of the Dec. 22 submission deadline.”
http://www.rpv.org/node/1037
That was right after the RPV was sued for not validating signatures.

No evil plan, just bad luck for those who were hoping to evade the law.
I don’t think Perry and Gingrich were planning on breaking the law myself.

[ArrogantBustard]

If the Republican Party nominates Romney,

I WILL VOTE FOR THE CONSTITUTION PARTY CANDIDATE.

I see no meaningful difference between R0mney and 0bama.

[pyx]

Rigging the ballot only one month ago in Virginia, is nothing less than scandalous.

Everyone should listen to the audio clip from Mark Levin at the Right Scoop.

[fightinJAG]

As a lawyer, Levin knows he better have some compelling “state of mind” evidence before charging that he believes he knows the motive of VA GOP officials in any actions they took.

There may well be a problem with their actions. But that is a far cry from being even prima facie evidence that the officials were (1) colluding to deliberately exclude candidates from the ballot (2) for the purpose of “shoving Romney down voters’ throats.”

On what basis does Levin dismiss all the other possible rationales for their actions?

And on what basis does he posit that VA GOP officials would believe that such a scheme would have even a prayer of working — i.e., no one can force anyone in VA to vote for Romney or anyone else, period. Voters can easily sit out the primary and then write-in the candidate of their choice in the general.

And where’s the evidence that candidates were either blocked from knowing about any rule changes or that the rule changes created a (1) new standard that was (2) objectively impossible for candidates to meet in the time allotted?

Seems to me that this is not a very careful analysis, Mark.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Mark has figured it out.

[mrsmith]

Wrong Mark:

“...Candidates were officially informed of the 15,000 rule in October 2011, well in advance of the Dec. 22 submission deadline.”
http://www.rpv.org/node/1037
That was right after the RPV was sued for not validating signatures.

No evil plan, just bad luck for those who were hoping to evade the law.
I don’t think Perry and Gingrich were planning on breaking the law myself...

(Sigh, the great Freepers get well-deserved success and then disappear!)