Virginia Republican Primary a 2-man only event

[Muldur]

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/24/us-usa-campaign-virginia-idUSTRE7BN09E20111224

What the frak is going on in VA? What does it mean when 4 of 6 supposedly viable candidates are excluded from the ballot entirely (VA prohibits write-ins during primaries)?

Is this the "moderate" wing of the party working to keep out the wack-jobs that might have a chance of beating Romney (Gingrich, Bachman, et al)? Paul has no chance, and his presence looks like "tokenism" to me.

 

[SezMe]

Is this the "moderate" wing of the party working to keep out the wack-jobs that might have a chance of beating Romney (Gingrich, Bachman, et al)? Paul has no chance, and his presence looks like "tokenism" to me.

No it is not.

There are specific requirements to get on the ballot in VA. Gingrich did not meet those requirements - as did others. Paul did. It is that simple. Any other speculation about "tokenism" or other such fantasies are just, well, fantasies.

 

[Muldur]

Hey, I don't have a proverbial "dog in this hunt" either way (I plan to vote straight ticket Democrat)...I'm just asking "WTF" when 4 of 6 candidates are kept off the ballot for ANY reason. Not to mention that the two who made it are pretty much the opposite ends of the party spectrum. It looks like chicanery in action.

 

[SezMe]

Hey, I don't have a proverbial "dog in this hunt" either way (I plan to vote straight ticket Democrat)...I'm just asking "WTF" when 4 of 6 candidates are kept off the ballot for ANY reason. Not to mention that the two who made it are pretty much the opposite ends of the party spectrum. It looks like chicanery in action.

There's your problem. Nobody did that.

If you think chicanery is involved, can you cite evidence of it?

Look, I'm not trying to rag on you here. It's just that I do not buy into your (apparent) sense that some skullduggery is going on here. As a VA resident, you probably have more local information that I do. Please share.

 

[Robrob]

I find it hilarious that only two of the six campaigns had the competence to get on the VA ballot. It's not like the laws were secret.

 

[Muldur]

There's your problem. Nobody did that.

If you think chicanery is involved, can you cite evidence of it?

Look, I'm not trying to rag on you here. It's just that I do not buy into your (apparent) sense that some skullduggery is going on here. As a VA resident, you probably have more local information that I do. Please share.

I'm not a VA resident, for starters.

Either way, the fact is that 4 of 6 candidates were excluded from the ballot, whatever justification is given for that. The two remaining candidates are polar opposites in terms of Republican politics. Romney is the "liberal" end of that rope (center/right), and Paul is the "conservative" end of that rope (wackjob libertarian/Tea Party types).

By excluding the other candidates, VA voters are going to be forced to one of two extremes.

 

[BenBurch]

The justification is that there are laws about ballot access, and only those two people cared enough about being in the primary to bother to comply with them.

 

[Puppycow]

Actually it does appear that, while the rules haven't been changed, the way the rules are enforced has been changed.

Is This Man The Reason Newt Gingrich Isn’t On The VA Ballot?

As Winger reports, up until this year the state GOP did not verify the signatures with the diligence that you might expect. “n the only other presidential primaries in which Virginia required 10,000 signatures (2000, 2004, and 2008) the signatures were not checked,” Winger writes. “Any candidate who submitted at least 10,000 raw signatures was put on the ballot.”

This time however (for reasons you can read in the article I linked if you're interested) they're actually checking the signatures and making sure they are valid. This is what they were supposed to do in the past, but didn't.

 

[Jalok]

I'm not a VA resident, for starters.

Either way, the fact is that 4 of 6 candidates were excluded from the ballot, whatever justification is given for that. The two remaining candidates are polar opposites in terms of Republican politics. Romney is the "liberal" end of that rope (center/right), and Paul is the "conservative" end of that rope (wackjob libertarian/Tea Party types).

By excluding the other candidates, VA voters are going to be forced to one of two extremes.

From my reading, only 4 of the big names even tried to get on the ballot: Romney, Paul, Gingrich, and Perry. Requirements to get on the ballot appear to be(was unable to locate official source) 10,000 signatures supposrting the candidate to include a minimum of 400 signatures from each of the 11 voting zones. In years past, the Reps apparently did not bother to verify signatures if you turned in +10,000. As of Nov2011 that number has been raised to +15,000. From my reading, both Romney and Paul turned in over 15k, while both Perry and Gingrich were in the 10-11k zone leading them to the verification process which cost them enough signatures to drop below the threshold.

So, the quick version:

of x candidates, only 4 tried
of 4 candidates, only 2 passed the regulations
of 2 that failed, Gingrich is kicking a fuss, Perry is sad but supportive of "rules are rules"

jalok

 

[leftysergeant]

Romney has the money and Paul has the whackadoodle partisans to put up a good ground game. Gingrich has not. Perry and Bachmann have the same problem, plus the added burden of being too obviously guanophrenic for a center-right state like Virginia.

 

[SezMe]

... (I plan to vote straight ticket Democrat)...

... As a VA resident, you probably have more local information that I do.

I'm not a VA resident, for starters.

Sorry, I took your statement of voting intentions in the context of this thread to mean that you were a VA resident.

 

[SezMe]

Romney is the "liberal" end of that rope (center/right), and Paul is the "conservative" end of that rope (wackjob libertarian/Tea Party types).

I'm going to challenge you on your characterization of Paul. He's for legalization of drugs; that's a conservative position? He's for a somewhat isolationist foreign policy; that's a conservative position? And so forth. He's a libertarian ... which is NOT necessarily congruent with him being a conservative.

 

[RandFan]

Romney is the "liberal" end of that rope (center/right), and Paul is the "conservative" end of that rope (wackjob libertarian/Tea Party types).

I would say most conservative ideology is driven more by social conservatism, hegemony and some vague notions about tax less spend less, the first two would make Paul a lefty liberal.

 

[MG1962]

I would say most conservative ideology is driven more by social conservatism, hegemony and some vague notions about tax less spend less, the first two would make Paul a lefty liberal.

I would say you are pretty right

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Hey, I don't have a proverbial "dog in this hunt" either way (I plan to vote straight ticket Democrat)...I'm just asking "WTF" when 4 of 6 candidates are kept off the ballot for ANY reason. Not to mention that the two who made it are pretty much the opposite ends of the party spectrum. It looks like chicanery in action.

Sad.

 

[Nova Land]

I'm going to challenge you on your characterization of Paul.... He's a libertarian ... which is NOT necessarily congruent with him being a conservative.

Agreed, he's a libertarian, and agreed libertarianism is not inherently either liberal or conservative. There are left-wing libertarians and right-wing libertarians (and libertarians who hold intriguing mixes of left-wing and right-wing positions).

Because some of Ron Paul's positions align with the left and others align with the right, he's been able to appeal to both sides over the years. But in running for president this cycle, he's chosen primarily to pander to the right.

Tricky posted a link (in the thread about Ron Paul and racism) to an article detailing some of Paul's more recent panderings to the right -- such as delivering the keynote address to a 2009 John Birch Society gathering, gladly accepting money from Stormfront and other far-right groups, etc. Is there any left-leaning group he has prominently associated with or publicly pandered to recently?

On his website he's stressing his strong opposition to abortion, ObamaCare, environmental regulations, etc. Here's his issues page. It appears to me to be aimed almost entirely at appealing to the right.

I don't see anything on Ron Paul's site touting his liberal or left leanings. But on the front page of his site, there is currently a lead article about how Ron Paul is a true conservative:

For many Republican politicians, being a “conservative” is similar to flying American flags at a used car lot. It’s not that used car salesman are extra-patriotic, they just know that such symbolism is good for business. For them, it’s mere marketing. The same is true of many “conservative” Republicans. Every Republican from Sen. Lindsey Graham to Mitt Romney claims to be a “conservative” these days, without having the slightest semblance of a voting record to back up such a claim.

Ron Paul has always remembered and represented what it means to be an actual conservative within a Republican Party that has largely forgotten what that term means in any substantive way.

and:

After his defeat, Taft griped, “Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank.”

That was the pure voice of old-right conservatism speaking.

It is echoed now by Ron Paul, who makes no secret of his high regard for Taft, Buffett and the old-right Republicans of the past, and of his disregard for the neocons and crony capitalists of today…

and even more plainly:

Paul’s pure conservatism puts him at odds with a party establishment that has sold out to Wall Street and multinational corporations.... f he wins Iowa, he could begin a process of transforming the Republican Party into a conservative party.

Interestingly, that article is by John Nichols. It originally appeared on the website of The Nation (which is the leading US magazine of liberal views). But you have to look really closely at the page to discover the author and original source. Ron Paul appears eager to present himself as holding hard-line right-wing views -- and to obscure any appearance he might have any left-leaning thoughts.

 

[leftysergeant]

Thge only thing the old whacko has to offer to the left is legalization of weed.

 

[BenBurch]

Sad.

Would you be saying that if he had declared his intention to vote a straight GOP ticket?

 

[BenBurch]

Thge only thing the old whacko has to offer to the left is legalization of weed.

Actually, he is setting that back YEARS by its association with his other blather.

 

[Crossbow]

So just to re-cap ...

All of Republicans running for President have been making big promises about how they will fix the budget, win the wars, restore faith in the government, be a better President than Obama, and so on and so forth.

However, only two of these same Republicans actually filed the proper paperwork for running for President in the state of Virginia.

Sorry, but if only two of this group can do a simple thing like doing their paperwork correctly, then how can the remainder possibly expect the public to develop serious confidence in their leadership skills?