The Cellar

The Cellar (http://cellar.org/index.php)
-   Politics (http://cellar.org/forumdisplay.php?f=5)
-   -   I don't have a dog in this fight, but... (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=26073)

ZenGum 12-24-2011 05:58 PM

Gingrich scares me more than any of the other candidates. And that is saying a lot!

His constant failure to accept responsibility for his own screw ups is particularly scary. His statement about his affairs ... "things happened in my life that were not appropriate...". No Newt, things didn't happen - ... YOU ... DID ... THEM.
And now this BS with signatures. He's been in Washington for decades. he knows the rules and procedures. Either he didn't get his team organised to get the signatures, or (I hope this is the real reason ...) they couldn't find 10,000 people willing to sign for him. "Failed system" my arse.

That sort of evasion of responsibility, combined with the narcissism, treachery, self-indulgence and manipulation, makes me wonder if he is a high functioning sociopath.

BigV 12-24-2011 06:39 PM

actually, I misspoke. It is a threshold that ROMNEY, not Perry, and Paul have passed.

***

Gingrich also scares me, I believe he is smart. And he's a master politician. But I really really don't agree with his ideas. I believe he could get a lot of bad stuff done, like having the federal marshals drag the justices of the supreme court down to congress. just.. evil shit like that.


He could be President, but that would be a bad, very bad thing.

BigV 12-24-2011 07:05 PM

um... that write in plan? Looks like someone, myself included, didn't do sufficient research. Because it's against the law. There will be no write in candidacy in the Virginia primary election.

sorry Newt.

Quote:

"Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said. "Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.

"We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice," Krull said.

But Virginia Code Section 24.2-644(C) rules out write-ins in its first sentence, saying: "At all elections except primary elections it shall be lawful for any voter to vote for any person other than the listed candidates for the office by writing or hand printing the person's name on the official ballot."
original article still in tab:

Quote:

(Reuters) - Leading Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has failed to meet the requirements to be in the primary election in his home state of Virginia, the state's Republican Party said.

The former Speaker of the House of Representatives defiantly pledged to run a write-in campaign for the March 6 primary.

Texas Governor Rick Perry also failed to make the ballot for the state's Republican vote. Only former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia vote.

Despite Gingrich's last-minute effort to submit his petitions by Thursday's deadline, the state party said on its website on Saturday that a verification process showed he had not submitted the 10,000 signatures required to qualify for the primary.

The Virginia state board of elections earlier said Gingrich, among the top three Republican candidates nationally, had made the ballot with 11,050 signatures.

"Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said. "Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.

"We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice," Krull said.

After Gingrich staged two campaign events in the state last week, his campaign was confident he had made the ballot even as his last-minute scramble raised concerns about Gingrich's abilities to run a national campaign.

(Reporting By Sam Youngman; Editing by Bill Trott)
same article same link hours later:

Quote:

(Reuters) - Leading Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has failed to meet the requirements to be in the presidential primary election in Virginia, where he resides, the state's Republican Party said.

Gingrich had been leading in a poll of Virginia voters and a spokesman for the former speaker of the House of Representatives defiantly pledged to run a write-in campaign for the March 6 vote. However, Virginia does not permit write-ins in primary elections, according to the state code.

The Virginia Republican Party also said Texas Governor Rick Perry's petitions also had failed to qualify him for the ballot. Only former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul qualified.

Three other members of the Republican field trying to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama - former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum - did not meet the Thursday deadline for submitting petitions.

Despite Gingrich's last-minute scramble to submit his petitions by the deadline, the state party said on its website on Saturday that a review process showed he did not have the required 10,000 verifiable signatures.

The Virginia state board of elections earlier had said Gingrich, among the top three Republican candidates nationally, had made the ballot with 11,050 signatures.

"Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot," Gingrich campaign director Michael Krull said. "Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.

"We will work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice," Krull said.

But Virginia Code Section 24.2-644(C) rules out write-ins in its first sentence, saying: "At all elections except primary elections it shall be lawful for any voter to vote for any person other than the listed candidates for the office by writing or hand printing the person's name on the official ballot."

A December 22 Quinnipiac poll for Virginia had Gingrich ahead with 30 percent of the vote, compared with 25 percent for Romney and 9 percent for Paul. Virginia is one of 11 states holding a primary or caucus on March 6.

After Gingrich staged two campaign events in the state last week, his campaign had been confident that he had made the ballot even as his last-minute scramble raised concerns about Gingrich's abilities to run a national campaign.

(Reporting By Sam Youngman; Editing by Bill Trott)

Undertoad 12-24-2011 09:54 PM

fuck that "will of the voters" shit, so overrated!!!

thank goodness it will actually be illegal to vote they way some people want to!!!

sadly there are two candidates left, i was hoping for just one, choice is an illusion!!!

Griff 12-25-2011 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV (Post 782870)
um... that write in plan? Looks like someone, myself included, didn't do sufficient research. Because it's against the law. There will be no write in candidacy in the Virginia primary election.

Wow. What kind of "democracy" they running down there?

BigV 12-25-2011 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad (Post 782887)
fuck that "will of the voters" shit, so overrated!!!

thank goodness it will actually be illegal to vote they way some people want to!!!

sadly there are two candidates left, i was hoping for just one, choice is an illusion!!!

I'm guessing you forgot your sarcasm smiley, but I've been wrong before....

Let me take the bitter out and address your point about choice. I *AGREE* with you, that we voters should be able to vote the way we want to vote. Why in the world would such a law be in place? In Washington (...*sigh*, my Washington, that is) there was a big brouhaha about the state primary elections. The fight was between the established political parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and the Libertarian Party (apparently these Parties are actual legal entities, with real interests) and... I forget who the other half of the lawsuit, the State of Washington, or some band of angry peasants... doesn't matter.

The point was that we, the people, wanted an open primary. I should be able to vote for whomever I like, anywhere on the ballot, including write-ins. The Parties strenuously opposed this! And they won. Our primary elections allow ONLY Party choices. (Note, this is not exactly what is happening in Virginia, as that has to do with who appears on the primary ballot, not who you may choose in a primary, but closely related.) The point of the lawsuit by the Parties was a successful effort to CONTROL who would be allocated the state's delegates. It's all about the PARTY'S control of the process. I haven't followed Virginia legislation, but I'm certain the highlighted part of the law that precludes write-in candidates in primary elections was put there by and for the Parties.

Please note that this does not pertain to the general election. Not only may a voter cast their ballot for either *party* ticket, but write-ins are also allowed. This "poison pill" is just for the primaries, so they can decide who can be called the Party's candidate. In WA, this prevented our largely blue state from voting for the most stupid, least likely to win red primary candidate (there's a term for this kind of defensive voting which escapes me at the moment).

I am not in favor of this Party only system for the primary election. I agree, it fucks over the small d-democratic process. I believe a proportional distribution of delegates, and eventually electors will dilute this poison.

Lamplighter 12-25-2011 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV (Post 782936)
<snip>

Please note that this does not pertain to the general election. Not only may a voter cast their ballot for either *party* ticket, but write-ins are also allowed. This "poison pill" is just for the primaries, so they can decide who can be called the Party's candidate. In WA, this prevented our largely blue state from voting for the most stupid, least likely to win red primary candidate (there's a term for this kind of defensive voting which escapes me at the moment).

I am not in favor of this Party only system for the primary election. I agree, it fucks over the small d-democratic process. I believe a proportional distribution of delegates, and eventually electors will dilute this poison.

V, let me disagree with you in these last 2 paragraphs... and talk only about the primaries.

It's sort of like the Boy Scouts of America. It seems some organizations should be open to all,
but because they are legal entities they have the right to say who can and who cannot be members.

Consider a minor party wanting to put forth it's candidate in accord with
it's own mission statement or ideals or preferences or whatever

But then the alternate (nefarious) approach of the local major party decides to flood
the primary selection process with it's own larger number of votes.

Tough, they say! The election is open to everyone to vote as a "small d" democracy.
And in the long run, bye bye minor parties.

BigV 12-25-2011 01:24 PM

Lamplighter, I welcome your disagreement. Good thing too, because we have one here.

I'll take your last statement first. Bye bye minor parties. Presto, magico, the future is here. The minor parties ***are already gone***. Look at Buddy Romer. Because he doesn't have the endorsement of the Party, he's going nowhere. What is the value of a Party anyhow? Why is it desirable to have one, major or minor? Aren't we all supposed to be working for our collective good of the nation, for federal elections of course.

The ability to crush a minor party candidate as you outline is extremely likely, easy even. And that would suck for the minor party. But let me ask you this, why do we have primaries even? If there were a minor party, how many candidates for their party nomination would they likely have? By definition they're minor already. Might there be two competing Fraxion candidates vying for the Fraxious Party nomination? Maybe. How much can be lost?

I guess I'm just not a fan of the party line voting. In fact, Washington will have no primary this year. Bye bye minor party? Screw that, bring on the General Election. If I had to choose a primary system, I'd choose something like the "Montana Primary" where the top two vote getters advance to the general election, party be damned. But that didn't fly here either.

I'm voting for a person, a person will be governing, not a party. Or, at least I believe it should be the person, not the party.

glatt 12-25-2011 04:56 PM

I live in Virginia. I don't have any special insider information on this primary issue. The primaries I have voted in have always included the candidates I cared about.

One crazy thing though. When I vote in the special upcoming county board primary next month for the Democrats, I will have to sign an oath that I won't vote for any candidate in the general election other than the party nominee. It's completely unenforcable, but it irks me anyway.

tw 12-26-2011 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 782984)
When I vote in the special upcoming county board primary next month for the Democrats, I will have to sign an oath that I won't vote for any candidate in the general election other than the party nominee.

Its more than unenforceable. It is unconstitutional. Is that a county voting requirement or a VA state wide one?

classicman 12-26-2011 02:20 PM

Its a VA Democratic party thing. I'm sure the R's have some stupid rules that are equally offensive.

Undertoad 12-26-2011 04:43 PM

It turns out that, in previous elections, the VA Republican Party has not checked the validity of signatures. If a candidate turned in 10,000 signatures it was assumed they were all valid, registered voters, and not forgeries at all.

In other words, theoretically, a team with a list and a bunch of Bics could assemble the 10,000 signatures for Alan Keyes in one pizza night.

If you check the information in ballot access petitions, you will generally be able to nullify a good fifth of them just for being incorrect. Ditto marks are not valid. Illegible signatures are not valid.

If you go further, you can remove another set where people have written their city instead of their polling location, or where they've gotten some aspect of the thing wrong. Go further and you can eliminate people not on the registered voters list, and obvious forgeries and such.

Eventually, if you have a lot of money and work hard at it, you can disallow half of the signatures for various reasons.

The policy for this election was that if you turned in over 15,000 signatures, they would not check them. And that is what Mitt Romney did.

Bonus irony: Rick Perry vetoed legislation to ease Texas's ballot access laws.

glatt 12-26-2011 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tw (Post 783073)
Its more than unenforceable. It is unconstitutional. Is that a county voting requirement or a VA state wide one?

turns out I was wrong. It's not a "primary." It's a "caucus," where the party chooses its nominee. I don't know if you have to be a Democrat to vote in it. But they will check my name off a list.

tw 12-26-2011 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glatt (Post 783098)
It's a "caucus," where the party chooses its nominee.

I did not know VA uses caucuses. How many other states (besides Iowa) use caucuses rather than primaries?

glatt 12-27-2011 09:05 AM

It doesn't use caucuses for everything. We're having primaries for presidential candidates. This is a caucus for county board party nominations. It's totally local, so it will have a greater impact on my life.


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:56 PM.

Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.