Tag: virginia

Yet one more reason why the Democrats will lose Virginia.

Shad planking.

To summarize the video: every year this event goes on in Virginia where people get together at the Wakefield Ruritan Club and eat shad that’s been smoked on wooden planks (thus, ‘shad planking’).  This is one of those big-time political social events for Virginia, and usually it’s pretty bipartisan because, you know, shad on wooden planks.  Anyway: according to the video, the organizers (as per their usual custom) twice extended an invite to Tim Kaine’s campaign for him to speak; they were twice ignored; they extended a similar (and perfectly standard) invitation to George Allen; and when Allen ended up being keynote speaker by default, the same Kaine people that shrugged off the invites in the first place got huffy and started an informal boycott.

Well.  I guess that means more shad for the Republicans, then.  More votes, too.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Note that I did not call this the primary reason why the Democrats will lose Virginia.  But state politicians ignore – or worse, dismiss – local events like this at their peril.  The Kaine campaign is claiming that they chose not to attend because it’s a small event and not a necessary stop on the campaign trail, yadda yadda: that attitude is interesting, considering that it had now-Governor McDonnell speaking in 2009, now-Senator Mark Warner speaking in 2008… and Tim Kaine in 2005, when he was running (successfully) for Governor.

Oh, well, I suppose that Kaine thinks that those grapes were probably sour anyway.

#rsrh Jimmy ‘Turncoat’ Webb (D, VA) backstabs President over Obamacare.

Oh, wait: was I supposed to be impressed that Senator Webb’s trash-talking the President’s Obamacare strategy now?

“I’ll be real frank here,” Webb said at a Bloomberg News breakfast, according to The Washington Post. “I think that the manner in which the health-care reform issue was put in front of the Congress, the way that the issue was dealt with by the White House, cost Obama a lot of credibility as a leader.”

Well, if we’re going to “be real frank here” then just let me pipe up: like Senator Webb I knew that the way that Obamacare was shoved down our collective throats was grotesque.  In fact, like Senator Webb I knew it at the time.  But it’s not my name listed among the Yea votes on Obamacare; it’s Senator Webb’s.  That’s because he’s the junior Senator from Virginia and I am not.  And one reason why I’m not the junior Democratic Senator from Virginia and Senator Webb is is because Senator Webb was willing and ready to pander to liberal Democrats – the same kind of people who spit on his troops in the Vietnam era – in order to get that Senate seat.  Continue reading #rsrh Jimmy ‘Turncoat’ Webb (D, VA) backstabs President over Obamacare.

I have a problem with this “Go to hell Barack.” sign.

Strictly speaking, it should be “Go to Hell, President Obama.”

The background is that it showed up as an advertisement at a Clarendon, VA Metro shop as part of an advertising campaign for Sick & Sicker, which is apparently a documentary about the Canadian health care system.  As you might have guessed from the ad and/or the documentary topic, it’s not really likely to contain very much in the way of praise for either Barack Obama, or his signature Obamacare legislation  Apparently the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority approved the ad because they’re not allowed to have opinions on political speech – which, by the way, this actually is; we’ve been telling our politicians to go to Hell since George Washington instituted the two-term tradition – and that apparently has gotten at least one politician in a bit of a tizzy:

“This advertisement is inappropriate, disrespectful of the President, and should be removed immediately,” [Rep. Jim] Moran [D, VA] said in a letter to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. “The families with children and thousands of tourists who take Metro everyday should not be subjected to such garbage. I understand WMATA vets these advertisements before allowing them to go up, but it seems someone wasn’t doing their job when this ad was approved.”

Well, shall we discuss “inappropriate” and “disrespectful,” Jimmy?

Sure.  Let’s do that. Continue reading I have a problem with this “Go to hell Barack.” sign.

Court explains reasoning on VA absentee ballot court order.

OK, let me try to explain just what is going on in this court order involving the VA GOP primary ballot.  For those who came in late: back in December, Virginia’s primary registration system ended up producing a result where only two Republican candidates (Mitt Romney and Ron Paul) qualified for the ballot.  This resulted in some frankly unkind things said about virtually everyone involved in the process, from the candidates to the Republican party of Virginia – usually involving competence levels, although conspiracy theorizing certainly wasn’t underrepresented.  While that was going on, Gov. Rick Perry filed a lawsuit (one later joined by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Santorum*) challenging the constitutionality of the process.  Yesterday the judge hearing the case ordered the Commonwealth of Virginia not to issue absentee ballots; today’s order explains why.

Continue reading Court explains reasoning on VA absentee ballot court order.

Annnnnd now VA AG Cuccinelli is *not* backing changing the primary ballot.

Interesting; and a pretty strong reversal from Saturday’s statement.

“I obviously feel very strongly that Virginia needs to change its ballot access requirements for our statewide elections,” Cuccinelli said in a statement.

“However, after working through different scenarios with Republican and Democratic leaders to attempt to make changes in time for the 2012 presidential election, my concern grows that we cannot find a way to make such changes fair to the Romney and Paul campaigns that qualified even with Virginia’s burdensome system.

“A further critical factor that I must consider is that changing the rules midstream is inconsistent with respecting and preserving the rule of law — something I am particularly sensitive to as Virginia’s attorney general.”

Continue reading Annnnnd now VA AG Cuccinelli is *not* backing changing the primary ballot.

VA AG Cuccinelli to fix primary ballot mess. [UPDATE]

[FURTHER UPDATE] Drudge is not reporting that Perry/Gringrich are on the ballot; but Bachmann, Gingrich, Huntsman, and Santorum have joined Perry’s lawsuit.

The Attorney General of Virginia “plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their names on the ballot;” as everyone reading this already knows, the recent Virginia primary ratification process ended up with only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul getting on the ballot. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry had too many of their signatures invalidated by the process; the other candidates didn’t even try. As I understand the situation, emergency legislation will require a super-majority in the state (well, Commonwealth) legislature; but the fact that Cuccinelli is already getting bipartisan backup (and the reported support of the Governor) suggests that such a thing may be actually achievable.
Continue reading VA AG Cuccinelli to fix primary ballot mess. [UPDATE]

VA AG Ken Cuccinelli calls for primary ballot reform, write-in option.

This just keeps getting better and better for the Virginia GOP, doesn’t it? Via Ballot Access News, first we get the Attorney General for Virginia pointing out that the requirements for ballot access are far too restrictive:

I would throw out for consideration that we should lower our requirements to 100 legitimate signatures per congressional district.

Let’s face it, absent a serious write-in challenge from some other candidate, Virginia won’t be nearly as ‘fought over’ as it should be in the midst of such a wide open nomination contest. Our own laws have reduced our relevance. Sad.

…and suggesting that a write-in ballot is possible. Which, as a lot of people with perhaps vested interests in there not being any more candidates on the ballot would tell you, is: a, impossible; and b, so mind-bogglingly obviously impossible that anybody who suggests that such a thing would be possible would be as dumb as Newt Gingrich.  Of course, some of the people who are most pushing the ‘dumb as Newt Gingrich’ bit are perhaps not entirely clear about Gingrich’s actual position:

“And we hope to launch a write-in campaign. We’re getting an amazing number of people who … believe Virginians ought to have the right to choose and shouldn’t be restricted to two people.”

When a reporter noted that state law prohibits write-in votes in Virginia primaries, Gingrich said: “There’s time for them to change it. If something’s wrong, they ought to fix it.”

Continue reading VA AG Ken Cuccinelli calls for primary ballot reform, write-in option.

Did the VA GOP change the rules on primary ballot access in November 2011?

Apparently, yes.

Richard Winger over at Ballot Access News has an EXTREMELY interesting post (link via here) on the mess that the Virginia Republican party has found itself in over… access to the ballot in Virginia. For those coming in late, background here and here: the very short version is that the VA GOP only certified Mitt Romney and Ron Paul for its primary ballot.  Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich both had too many signatures tossed; Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann didn’t even try.  Of the seven candidates, one (Romney) had more than enough signatures (15K) to bypass the verification process entirely.  All of this has caused a lot of agitation among Republicans following the primary process, of course; and not just from people who disapprove of what the VA GOP has done.  There has been a good deal of defending of the outcome; and one argument heavily used in this defense has been that the campaigns all knew the rules and that previous Republican campaigns were able to get on the ballot, so clearly a competent current Republican campaign should have done so.

One small problem with that: as Winger argues, the rules were allegedly drastically changed.  In November of this year. Continue reading Did the VA GOP change the rules on primary ballot access in November 2011?

Day Two of the Great VAGOP Meltdown.

And it is a meltdown.

For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won’t contain the word ‘Mormon’ anywhere in their description, by the way). The current defenses to all of this are “rules are rules” and “any campaign that couldn’t follow them are by definition poor campaigns:” I will leave it to the individual reader to decide just how either argument will play in, say, Peoria; I am frankly of the opinion that the above defenses are well-suited towards reassuring Romney and/or Paul voters – and will do very little to persuade the other 60-65% or so of likely Republican primary voters.

But since I’m telling Mitt Romney what won’t help his situation, it kind of behooves me to tell him what might.

Continue reading Day Two of the Great VAGOP Meltdown.

#rsrh Four on the ballot in Virginia’s primary.

From BearingDrift comes the report that only four candidates have gotten in their nominating petitions for the Virginia primary by today’s deadlines:

  • Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich;
  • Rep. Ron Paul (TX);
  • Texas Governor Rick Perry; and
  • Fomer Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

The Virginia primary is on March 6th; it is, in fact, nominally part of “Super Tuesday,” although it’s not going to be the blowout this year that it’s been in the past.  There’s no indication that the Bachmann, Huntsman, and/or Santorum campaigns have filed for an extension, either.

As to what it means… well, I’m getting conflicting opinions.  Reply Hazy: Try Again Later.