Something very strange has been afoot during this Republican presidential primary season, with several pundits and political figures implying that there are major players laying back on the sidelines, Sarah Palin hinting about it and various usual suspects beating around the Bushes about Jeb.
State primary filing deadlines and requirements must’ve flown out the window sometime ago when we weren’t looking, from the sound of it.
Now we have Perry apparently with insufficient signatures for Virginia, and three more who didn’t even submit any signatures. I’d say it was an establishment shot across the bow against those candidates that they don’t care for but then there’s Huntsman, an establishment baby if there ever was.
It sounds to me as if there’s a beneath-the-radar effort to undermine the role of the states in qualifying candidates again. It’s a bipartisan effort.
What all of this points to is Romney being given the golden GOP key to the white house.
If every last conservative does not wake up and put an end to this it spells the end of the republic.
We need a conservative third party candidate to get behind or we are all screwed its that simple.
The rules for getting on the VA GOP primary ballot were set by the RPV, where Perry enjoys support among its leadership. It is up to the candidates’ campaigns to get the proper number of qualified voters’ signatures. The rules for qualifying are stringent but straightforward: 10K signatures of registered VA voters, including at least 400 registered voters in each of the 11 Congressional Districts.
All these conspiracy theories, calls for legal challenges, suggestions of corruption etc. are way out of line. All the candidates knew, or should have known, the rules. If they chose not to submit petitions (Huntsman/Bachmann/Santorum) or didn’t get the right number of registered voters’ signatures (Perry) it’s the candidate’s team that erred, not the RPV.
VA is only one of fifty states. Unlike 2000, its primary won’t make that much difference in the outcome.