Posted on 12/24/2011 7:49:29 PM PST by Jim Robinson
I just started a new facebook page as a place for grassroots conservatives to urge Virginia to allow the leading Republican contender for the presidency onto the Virginia ballot. Gingrich is the Republican leader nationwide and in Virginia! It's absolutely ludicrous, if not criminal, for Virginia to deny the conservative base and tea party favorite a spot on the ballot while they promote their elite ruling class RINO!
Do not allow Virginia to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of conservative grassroots voters who would mark their ballots for Newt Gingrich! Adding insult to injury, they don't even allow write-ins on their ballots!
It truly is a one man election (disregarding the Ron Paul nutcake). You can vote for anyone you wish in Virginia as long as his name is Mitt Romney.
We need to write or call the Republican Party of Virginia to register our outrage and if you are a facebook user, please visit and "Like" the "Newt Gingrich on Virginia Ballot" page.
Thank you all very much, and Merry Christmas!!
Thank you very much for doing this Jim. As a VA resident and GOP activist I am appalled by this act of arrogant stupidity by the RPV. They called me up looking for funds earlier this week and I pledged a rather generous donation. I am now reneging on it. I call all VA GOP activists to withold all donations to the party until they let Newt on the ballot.
With many Dems expected to vote in the Repub primary, do you have a clue who they will be voting for? I hope Paul beats Romney after this fiasco.
*liked*
Jim, thank you for doing that! It’s a bummer this news broke on the day before Christmas when many folks may be away.
Also, would an online petition to the Va. Officials help or will the FB serve the same purpose? I wondered because a lot pf people still don’t use Facebook.
Wishing you a blessed Christmas and wonderful new year.
Jim, there has to be some standard people have to meet to be on the ballot. All I would do is try to suggest a standard that could be applied fairly to all and would give people an unfair advantage who had been following the old rule.
Changing the signature standard in any way now (eliminating address verification, lowering the amount needed or extending the deadline) would not be fair to candidates who planned their campaigns based on the old standard, because there are months of time for collecting signatures that they cannot make up for now.
You could go by a standard based on national polling like the debates do in order to fit in multiple other candidates. But polling seems like a weak standard to base a law on, and opens questions of whether one poll is favored over another.
I think a rock solid, fair standard is to say that anyone who wins (or even places 2nd or 3rd) in another state’s primary should be able to become a late entry on Virginia’s ballot, either by collecting the signatures by a new deadline or paying a late penalty fee. This is something that could be a permanent law, not just a temporary fix for this election. And it is more fair, because it doesn’t favor an early frontrunner and discriminate against someone who has a late surge.
Bottom line, the situation with only 2 people on the ballot is an embarrassment. The way candidates drop out of these primary races, it makes it possible neither one will still be in the race by the time the vote comes around.
Jim, I understand how you want to stop Romney, and I appreciate it, but facebook “likes” is not how candidates get on the ballot in Virginia.
We have a law, and we have rules, and the rules were made plain to all the candidates, and every candidate had to live by those rules.
I’m sure Gingrich and Perry will file petitions to the RPV to get on the ballot, and maybe they will find a way to persuade themselves onto the ballot. But it is unseemly to launch an OWS-style protest against our state and our committee.
I doubt anybody would be doing this if Gingrich got on, and Romney didn’t. We’d all be happy as clams.
I’ll wait for the RPV to get back from Christmas and issue more information about what is happening before I comment much further. I think there has been a lot of misinformation here and elsewhere, and it’s being fueled by people acting out emotionally in the moment, and when there is nobody at work to answer the questions (weekend AND Christmas, you know).
Remember, our RPV got McDonald and Cuccinelli elected. And Bill Bolling, despite his endorsement of Romney, is a solid conservative as well, and a good man who doesn’t deserve to be slandered by some here at FR.
And Bolling doesn’t run the RPV. If anybody does, it would be McDonald, who has not endorsed. And Cuccinelli is also a powerful statewide official. You think Ken would let all the conservative get bumped off the ballot by some trickery?
But all those candidates did something Gingrich and Perry failed to do — got 10,000 VALID signatures to run for their offices.
Romney wasn’t exempt from the rules. He had to turn in signatures just like the other candidates. He had over 16,000 signatures. He turned in the number needed to avoid strict scrutiny of his ballots.
However, from the rumors about how many ballots of Gingrich’s were rejected, if Gingrich had turned in 16,000 signatures, he’d have qualified even under strict scrutiny — and of course he wouldn’t have had his ballots checked, being over 15,000.
I’m surprised anybody knows the truth anymore, because falsehood and conjecture makes it around the world on the internet without a care for the facts.
Dittos to all CharlesWayneCT said.
I would add that it’s offensive to those of us who’ve worked in the VA GOP political trenches to see folks who know nothing about VA or its politics attacking our superior elected officials, state party officials, and those volunteers who gave up a very long day over the Christmas weekend to work (until 3am) on the certifications.
Much of what’s been posted here today comes from politico’s unnamed sources, and then been repeated throughout the MSM echo chamber, and now on FR as Gospel. It’s very disheartening. We should wait to hear directly from the people involved.
Merry Christmas y’all.
Oh God. I was just joking about an “Occupy” movement. And I was worried it would be too over-the-top. And here you are, actually embracing anarchist tactics because you are upset that the rules didn’t work out well for your candidate.
And yes, they were happy to have Gingrich come to an event. The idea that RPV is against Gingrich is absurd. They also has Perry at an event. But we are supposed to believe the RPV conspired against Perry and Gingrich?
We’ve had the rule for a long time, and this is the first time a serious candidate has failed to complete the process.
All the statewide candidates have to meet this rule as well. And Ron Paul did it — so don’t give me that ‘establishment’ crap. Paul has dedicated supporters — don’t Gingrich and Perry?
Anyway, for those who care, here is part of the e-mail the RPV sent out tuesday regarding the count:
Background:Virginia's 10,000 signature threshold is one of the highest in the nation because we take seriously the task of choosing our nominees. Not only do Presidential candidates have to hit that threshold, so do any candidate for statewide office (U.S. Senate, Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General).
To be successful in Virginia, candidates need to be able to build a strong grassroots organization and have support in all regions of the Commonwealth. The 10,000 statewide and 400 by congressional district signature requirements ensures that candidates build organizations that can be effective.
Cain actually had petitions out at the general election, so I’m betting he would have had his 15,000 signatures. He was the only candidate whose petitions I saw in this cycle.
And why would you think that? DO you know who McDonnell supports this time? Do you know who he endorsed in 2008? Do you know anything about him? Do you know who runs the RPV, and what influence the governor has? Do you know anything at all about Virginia politics?
Some of us got the “monday” e-mail on late tuesday afternoon, and it offered a location to sign that was closing in 2 hours and was TOWARD DC, so that you’d end up in commuter traffic to get back home. On the week before Christmas.
But at least he wrote — Perry’s campaign never said a word about it, so I assumed he had an organization collecting signatures, and didn’t need help. I did write and remind him about it, and said I’d sign if they told me where.
Something is wrong with a system that is designed to make it hard for legitimate candidates — even a Republican frontrunner and resident of that state, to get on a state’s ballot. 5 out of 7 candidates for the Republican nomination for president did not qualify. These are not people who have no business cluttering the ballot. These are governors, and current and former members of Congress. In other words, only the candidates with huge war chests are allowed. That’s what it boils down to. It’s designed, whether intentional or not, to disenfranchise Virginia voters. It needs to be changed. If we just sit back and say “oh well” we’re going to get what we deserve, Obama or Romney. Raise hell. Make Virginia do the right thing. Make it happen.
Look, it’s clear from your posts that you:
a) dislike Newt; and
b) are shilling for the powers-that-be in VA.
All of which is fine. But the bottom line is that there’s somethins seriously wrong with a system that only puts 2 of 7 legitimate candidates on the ballot. The threshold for gettin on a PRIMARY ballot should be pretty low.
Contrary to sentiments expressed by some who are conflating the two, this is an entirely different situation than qualifying to VOTE. Apples and oranges. I doubt there’s any danger a candidate will be elected twice. Or a non-citizen or felon will be elected.
We should fight election FRAUD...but if Buddy Freaking Roemer wants to run in the GOP primary and can get a few people to sign petitions to put him on the ballot, he should be on the ballot.
This has Romney stink all over it.
Hank
There’s something clearly wrong with a candidate set who can’t meet the rules for ballot access. Is it the fault of the rules? Well, Romney and Ron Paul both followed the rules and made it on the ballot, so apparently it IS possible.
I haven’t picked a candidate yet. When Perry failed last night, I was ready to support Gingrich as the only close-to-conservative left. But he didn’t make it either.
I am going to defend the RPV to the extent that attacks on it are rediculous. I’m not an RPV member, I’m not even a republican committee member, having dropped out in the fall of 2008. But I have personally met all three statewide leaders, and they are all honorable men who I cannot imagine would subvert the ballot process for a candidate.
And there’s no way the RPV is trying to throw things to Romney. I would note that McDonnell is close friends with Perry, and Perry came here in September to raise money for the RPV. I was half-expecting McDonnell to endorse Perry, but wasn’t sure since Perry faltered in the polls. McDonnell is a solid conservative, a bright star, and endorsed Fred Thompson in 2008.
I’ve eaten dinner with Bill Bolling. He is a solid conservative, a likeable man, does his job well, and is an honorable christian who wouldn’t play games for his candidate, even if he could which he can’t because he doesn’t have much control over the state apparatus anyway.
And Ken Cuccinelli needs no support from me, although I’ve spoken with him before and I do support him. We all know his credentials — and to think he would let the RPV get away with anything is absurd.
So if anything wrong DID happen, I fully expect McDonnell and Cuccinelli will step in and make it right, if they can. And they will have more sway than some Facebook postings or rantings from commenters on their web site.
Sorry, but one can hardly be a "solid conservative" and a "good man" while endorsing Romney. Of all the conservative candidates, the guy endorses Romney? Unbelievable.
Sorry, but one can hardly be a "solid conservative" and a "good man" while endorsing Romney. Of all the conservative candidates, the guy endorses Romney? Unbelievable.
Whoever in Virginia came up with this hurdle to get on a ballot may have had good intentions, but it’s a heavily flawed system that needs to be changed. If 5 out of 7 candidates failed to qualify, that’s evidence enough that it’s not workable. Does the RPV want Obama to be re-elected? Does the RPV not want its residents to have a clear choice in its Republican primary? Does the RPV only want the candidates with the most funds to prevail? Because that’s the way its system is designed.
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