Sorry, whatever they’re doing in VA is just plain stupid. What are these “rules” trying to accomplish? Keep the unknown riff raff off the ballot? These candidates are hardly unknown and they’re all fully vetted qualified Republicans. Perry is sitting governor of Texas, Bachmann a sitting Congressperson, Santorum a prior Senator and Congressman, Gingrich prior Congressman and Speaker of the House. This is inexcusable! And it’s way bigger than Virginia. It affects ALL of us. I don’t know how they’re going to resolve this, but they need to get these candidates on the ballot if they want to be on it.
I’ve come to this discussion late but it really ticks me off to see what’s happening, especially given how the GOP has seemed so intent on doing everything possible to clear the way for Romney.
My understanding is that Virginia primary was moved up earlier time around, thereby allowing candidates less time to fulfill the requirements. If that is true then they should have scaled down the requirements. By not doing so it gives the appearance of Virginia being set up as a firewall designed to protect the establishment candidate by effectively cutting off all those who caught fire late in the game (such as Newt), candidates who throughout much of their run didn’t have the funds (unlike Romney) to fully canvass the state.
Intentionally or not, it smacks of yet another stab in the back to all who dare to challenge the preordained pick. At the very least they should allow the option to write-in a candidate as a means of fixing this fiasco.