Posted on 12/30/2011 12:38:19 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Newt Gingrich said his campaign will likely join Rick Perry in challenging Virginia’s complicated elections rules, which allowed only two of the seven leading GOP candidates to get on the ballot for the Republican primary in that state.
The former House speaker and the other candidates except Mitt Romney and Ron Paul failed to collect the required 10,000 signatures.
“Gov. Perry filed a lawsuit, I think, where the judge has invited the other candidates to join the lawsuit, and I think we are going to, although that’s a lawyer conversation,” Gingrich told Fox News today. “I’m not in charge of that sort of thing. I’m focused on Iowa. But clearly we would like to have the right to choose between all of the candidates. And we think having only two of the candidates on the ballot limits the people of Virginia from having a real impact on the presidential selection process.”
Gingrich also acknowledged that the negative ads of his political opponents have taken a toll on his presidential campaign, but he insists that he plans to stay positive.
“I keep emphasizing that I’m going to stay positive, that I think we have big challenges and that we need to create jobs and we need to get the economy moving,” Gingrich told Fox News this afternoon. “I’m getting a lot of positive feedback from people who walk up to me and say, ‘You know, I’m really glad that you’re not like the politicians who are running all of this negative stuff.’ So we’ll see what happens caucus night.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
“Political parties are acting under the color of law. Laws of the state govern how political primaries are conducted. And these political parties should hold themselves to the full standards of the constitution, and run their primaries fairly. Clearly, Virginia is not doing that.”
This has nothing to do with the “color of the law” as political parties are not government officials.
And we know that political parties do not “hold themselves to the full standards of the constitution,” as many state parties have closed primaries and restrict who can and cannot vote in their primary for a federal election.
So it’s OK for Virginia to change the rules in the middle of the game in your world... how nice.
Ken Cuccinelli’s office is in court defending the LAWS Perry is challenging.
Perry isn’t challenging any “rules”.
Paul did not get 15,000 signatures so his were checked.
The RPV said they spent seven hours validating his petitions.
What rule was changed?
In the end, I do want this to have been a fair procedure. If it is proven that things are like what you and one other person have related here, then it needs to be set straight.
I’m not in favor of some of the campaigns being gamed here.
The problem with that argument is that the law nonetheless requires 10,000 signatures from valid voters.
It’s the Party’s job to verify the petitions and certify to the state that the candidates got them.
If the VaGOP didn’t validate the signatures in 2008 (and in effect lied) it’s demeaning to say “Hey, they used to let us cheat so we demand they let us cheat again!”
The Oct. notification was late, but I don’t think Perry and Gingrich were planning on evading the law anyway.
Thanks for the comments MrSmith. I agree with your take on it.
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