Virginia Republican Primary a 2-man only event

[JoeTheJuggler]

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

What an interesting sentence.

You've got a dangling modifier that you've tacked on to VA voters (probably by mistake) and then a passive voice construction. Grammatically, what you're saying is that because VA voters excluded the other candidates, they're being forced (by whom? themselves also?) to choose between Romney and Paul?

How about we skip the evasive language. Can you say straight up who you think excluded the other candidates and who you think is forcing VA primary voters to choose between Romney or Paul?

Do you think the VA GOP rules for getting on the primary ballot aren't fair? If so, who should set those rules, and what should they be?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm just asking "WTF" when 4 of 6 candidates are kept off the ballot for ANY reason.

There's that passive voice construction again.

"Kept off the ballot" by whom? Aren't you using the passive voice in order to hide the fact that the only possible agent is the candidates themselves (or maybe the people of VA if the barrier was the inability to collect enough petition signatures)?

 

[leftysergeant]

The only thing that kept the four off the ballot is their incompetence.

Look here, these people are not rocket scientists, you know.

 

[crimresearch]

Why is anyone in the least bit surprised when career politicians act (or fail to act) in a manner that shows they think the rules apply to them?

IIRC, didn't Hillary pull a similar blunder and order her staff to not focus on critical states, because she 'had it in the bag'?

 

[cwalner]

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?

Not sure I fully agree with your conclusion. As it applies to Gingrich and Perry, who tried, but failed, it is fair. However, the other candidates chose not to get on the ballot for the Primaries. This is not unusual and often speaks more to strategy than leadership issues. It is not uncommon for candidates to bypass a state in the primaries, if they think the cost of campaigning there is not worth it. The only reason any candidates give a rat's ass about New Hampshire is that it is the first and can establish momentum. If the New Hampshire primary were later, and interest based only on their votes at the convention, they would be lucky to get a single candidate on their ballots.

 

[SezMe]

What an interesting sentence. <snip>

You've got a sharp eye out today, Joe.

This matter might not be quite as clear cut as being presented here. The rules did change on the candidates so there is room to think that something other than incompetence is at play. Apparently some Republican filed a suit that related to how the petition signatures are counted. It used to be the party itself validated the signatures while the Secretary of State validated them for independents. Of course, the self-policing aspect didn't really work because the parties didn't put much effort into signature validation. This election, because of the suit, the SoS did all the validation and some candidates didn't have enough valid signatures although they had enough total signatures.

Now, all of this is from memory from an article I read a bit ago. After this posting, I'll try to find some *gasp* evidence.

ETA: Here's one story but not from an unbiased source so read it with a critical eye.

 

[cwalner]

This election, because of the suit, the SoS did all the validation and some candidates didn't have enough valid signatures although they had enough total signatures.

This could be an error on the signature gathering company for not padding enough, taking into account the new law. It could also be cheapness on the part of the candidate for not paying for enough signatures to pad appropriately.

 

[SezMe]

True. In order to point the finger of blame with credibility, we would have to know when the decision was made to change the validation process and how effectively the change was communicated to the various candidates.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

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

Yep.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

It's an old political ploy. Challenge your opponents signatures.

It worked for Obama when he first ran for state Senate.

 

[leftysergeant]

This could be an error on the signature gathering company for not padding enough, taking into account the new law. It could also be cheapness on the part of the candidate for not paying for enough signatures to pad appropriately.

It could also mean that nobody on the entire team has a bleedin' clue what they are doing, in which case, no public harm accrues from Newt's not being on the ballot.

 

[WildCat]

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?



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.

Damn, Newt was counting on all the signatures from his fake Facebook followers to get him on the ballot!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It's only 10K signatures, right? That's not very many. And it's not signatures of people who are committing to vote for that candidate; just signatures of those who support putting that candidate's name on the ballot.

It's a pretty low bar. If you can't (or simply don't) get 10K challenge-proof petition signatures, you probably ought not be on the ballot.

 

[geni]

It's only 10K signatures, right? That's not very many. And it's not signatures of people who are committing to vote for that candidate; just signatures of those who support putting that candidate's name on the ballot.

Its a fair number if you have to do it in a short period. If you haven't already got compain teams on the ground or the cash to buy them it wouldn't be easy.

It's a pretty low bar. If you can't (or simply don't) get 10K challenge-proof petition signatures, you probably ought not be on the ballot.

Why? To run for MP I need 10 signatures and £500. It seems to work. Has there been a significant issue with too many candidates running of late?

 

[geni]

It could also mean that nobody on the entire team has a bleedin' clue what they are doing, in which case, no public harm accrues from Newt's not being on the ballot.

I suspect one of the side effects of the constant swings in the challenger to Romney position is that the republican organising tallent is spread a little thin.

 

[SezMe]

There's always scores of theoretical candidates for President. For example, Randall Terry, the anti-abortion loon, is theoretically in the race. It is reasonable to establish a significant threshold to get on the ballot or it could be pages and pages long. As Joe notes, 10K valid signatures may or may not be "significant" depending on who you ask.

 

[BenBurch]

Yep.

Fair enough.

 

[BenBurch]

It's an old political ploy. Challenge your opponents signatures.

It worked for Obama when he first ran for state Senate.

And a perfectly ethical ploy, as well.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why?

Because it's the same rules the other candidates had to abide by to get on the ballot in the VA primary election. Are you suggesting there should be a special exception for some candidates--those without a campaign structure or enough money in place to collect signatures?

And back to my question for Muldur: exactly who should decide that new rule to get on the VA GOP primary ballot if not the people and entities that have made the existing rules?

 

[Rich_C]

Newt Gingrich's campaign was very disorganized for this. I live in Virginia, and I got a rambling robo-call the night before the deadline asking me to come to a rally in Arlington and sign the petition to get him on the ballot. It was definitely a last minute push to get him over the 10,000 signature limit.