http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/.../28/1/paul-top-gop-primary-ballot-ar-1572784/
Virginia Repub Party will require Primary voters to sign loyalty pledge to support Repub candidate in the General Election. Unenforceable, but should prove to be fun for Dems hoping to sway the outcome.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/...to-relax-ballot-rules-but-not-jus-ar-1571606/
Few phrases are as aggravating as the tiresome bromide "rules are rules."
When those rules appear to stifle democracy, we all have good reason to question them.
I guess so, especially for a dyed-in-the-wool liberal Demoncrat [sic] like Williams, who seems afraid of the two Repub candidates that did make it to the Primary ballot.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/...ely-to-change-law-to-allow-gingri-ar-1569616/
Newt Gingrich wants Virginia legislators to change the law in time for him to start a write-in campaign for the March 6 presidential primary.
But that appears virtually impossible, for practical as well as political reasons.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is calling on the legislature to lower the hurdles for ballot access. Virginia's process, under which only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Rep. Ron Paul qualified for the primary, "screams out for making our ballot more accessible," Cuccinelli said
I'm surprised at the AG. Up till now he's been fairly upstanding, even when his favorite policy, program or candidate was getting gored. If Ron Paul can collect a minimum of 10,000 total signatures, with at least 400 from each Congressional district, I fail to see how the process can be that overwhelmingly inaccessible.
There are lots of reasons to be upset about Mitt being a candidate for anything better than garbage collector. There are lots of reasons to believe that Ron Paul is unelectable in spite of being the one whose voting record is closest to the desires of 2A gun-nut single-issue voters, Tea Partiers, and most of the other loonybin voters. But having a campaign staff that cannot get out there and collect 10,000 discrete signatures (with at least 400 in each Congressional district) does not seem to be reason enough to try and circumvent, change, or ignore Virginia's rules for getting on a Primary Election ballot. It does, by my way of reasoning, seem likle a good reason for kicking butts and possibly replacing underperforming campaign staff.
Politicians who desire to go the first route, as opposed to the latter, diminish or completely destroy whatever confidence I might have had in them. It makes me think if things don't go their way after they are elected they might just do that sort of thing - again.
stay safe.