Posted on 12/24/2011 8:29:18 PM PST by no dems
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's campaign attacked Virginia's GOP primary election system on Saturday for keeping him off the state's March 6 Super Tuesday ballot. The state party said that Gingrich, who lives in Virginia, had failed to submit the required 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. The Gingrich campaign responded that "only a failed system" would disqualify Gingrich and other candidates. It said Gingrich would pursue an aggressive write-in campaign, although state law prohibits write-ins on primary ballots.
Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said in a statement: "We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice." However, state law says this about primary write-in campaigns: "No write-in shall be permitted on ballots in primary elections."
Forty-six delegates will be at stake in Virginia's Super Tuesday primary. That's a small fraction of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination. But they could prove pivotal in a close race, especially for a candidate like Gingrich, who expects to do well in Southern contests. Gingrich already missed the deadline to appear on the ballot in Missouri's Feb. 7 primary, though he insists it doesn't matter because the state awards delegates based not on the primary but on a Republican caucus held in March. "After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary," the party announced early Saturday on its Twitter feed.
Gingrich had been concerned enough to deliver his signatures personally. Rushing from New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Jan. 10, he held a rally Wednesday in Arlington, Va., where volunteers asked supporters to sign petitions.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
AHHHhhh I get it. He had over the 10,000 signatures and for the very first time machines check the addresses... All candidates but mitt, and Paul are on the ballot..
yep, all Newt’s fault..
Just in EVERY poll among Tea Party supporters.
And again.
I’ll put my iron boot up your a$$!
Rombot,
Yes! And again and again and again... Newt leads among conservatives, Tea partiers, and overall (outside of your Willard’s home states.)
BS
RPV sucks, sucks, sucks. The rats are more ethical than thr republicans in this state. Republicans for out of control cronyism, highways deteriorationg because the money goes to light rail and other agenda 21 initiatives, high speed rail, toll roads, etc etc. Makes me sick.
LOL!!! Come on Darth, it’s Christmas show a little love.
Merry Christmas
This is why choosing a candidate solely on what positions they hold, or even their ability to articulate them, is shortsighted. One must also consider the candidate’s ability to build an organization, manage it, and make sure the basics are covered (like getting on the ballot in all 50 states). Seriously, what does this say about his ability to handle the basics? Gingrich has never really show these characteristics. Even if he were to be elected President, he has no track record as a manager of a large organization, and would be nearly as incompetent as Obama in this regard.
This is why I pray that someday, a leader such as Allen West will make a bid for the presidency. Retired military leaders and former governors typically have a better time at managing their administrations than do former congressmen or senators.
I just love when some (this is not directed to you Nodems) FR’s post their ignorance of the electoral process with airhead postulations without first learning what the facts are. Remember the buzz going around because Gingrich left Iowa and headed back to his Virginia home ? He was running around trying to get on the Virginia ballot.
Gimgrich has been around long enough to know to submit 10-20% more signatures than required which I understand he did.. What he failed to get is 400 signatures from each of the states congressional districts which is peculiar to Virginia. If I’m right he might also have had to put up a candidate delegate for that district. And that has yet to be confirmed.
That’s the problem you run into when you make a presidential bid and you have limited funds and why some of these candidate start running years earlier than the election.... The process is geared to the rich and connected..
Every candidate for statewide office has to get 10,000 signatures. All the governor, lt, governor, and at. General candidates manage to do it. Every 4 years many presidential hopefuls do it (in 2008 Duncan Hunter failed).
It’s hard, and we occasionally debate having other ways because it doesn’t really prove anything (republicans tend to sign all the petitions because that way others will sign your petitions, and one of the odd things this year was that the campaigns seemed to eschew any cooperation).
But I was shocked that Perry didn’t get 15,000 so he didn’t have to worry. He was here in September, we had an election in November, and I never saw a Perry petition, and the campaign never answered e-mails about it. Perry had a former AG working for his campaign, and Kilgore knew exactly what had to be done, and failed to do it.
I’m not as surprised at Gingrich, although he does LIVE here.
Don’t believe everything you read on blogs. If you want to know the facts, I suggest waiting until after Christmas, for the RPV to put out a press release.
They counted the signatures, and went home for Christmas. A lot of people are making a lot of foolish speculation, none of which seems to be verifiable at this point.
The petitions all have a place for addresses, and I’ve heard over 2000 of the signatures Gingrich had gave no addresses. They are required.
Also, each petition page has to be signed by a registered voter, to affirm that they witnessed all the signatures, and I heard at least one petition collector didn’t qualify.
There was a simple way to avoid this — put in 15,000 signatures.
I think Gingrich expected the RPV to turn a blind eye to any irregularities in the signatures (I did, in fact, think so as well). Apparently they didn’t.
One of the volunteers who gave up their christmas to verify the signatures was KILLED in a car accident on the way home afterwards.
Newt progressive tendencies on display again here....
Blame anyone but your own mistakes newty. Sounds like a lib to me.
Sorry to you and Jim, but facebook is not how we put candidates on the ballot in Virginia, and we also don’t put candidates on the ballot because people throw tantrums, have fits, or think the rules are “too hard”.
If there was actual mischief, we will find it and correct it. If Perry and Gingrich didn’t turn in 10,000 valid signatures of registered voters, they didn’t qualify. Those are the laws, and last I looked conservatives were the ones who lived by the rule of law, not by emotion and protest.
What’s next, are you all going to come and do an “OWS” sit-in at RPV headquarters and hold your breath until you get your way? Seriously guys. I’m sure each candidate will make a formal request, and the RPV will consider those requests, but the organization is not RINO, it is not corrupt, it is not arbitrarily eliminating Newt because of some vast left-wing conspiracy.
All he needed was 15,000 signatures. Nobody could stop him from collecting that many signatures.
Newt has been around long enough to know that a slimy scumbag like Romney and a thoroughly corrupt GOP establishment will kick over rocks looking for any way they can to clear the deck for Mittens. I hope Newt has surrounded himself with people he can trust.
You "heard" wrong as you will officially find out next week, my Establishemt friend.
Thanks (for all the good you comments will do) I am almost bald from pulling my hair out today reading a lot of these threads and ill-informed comments! Sheesh, it was MY franchise and yours that were knocked out with all this, but folks from across the country are convinced it’s all a RINO conspiracy .. if only they knew the first thing about the people they are condemning. It was the Gingrich and Perry campaigns that messed up, no one else. They did too little, too late. Period.
Liked.
I'm no fan of Newt, but the only people who "qualified" for the ballot were those granfathered in based on the last presidential race. If noone was able to qualify under the new rules (this is the first time computer validation of addresses was used), then the system is broken.
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