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The last hope for Virginia conservatives to vote for one of their own in the  March 6, 2012 presidential primary lies in the timely passage of state senator Frank W. Wagner’s SB 510 allowing write-in voting in that election.

By conservative, we mean those who believe the next president should be committed to the long march toward downsizing government and curtailing the administrative state, strengthening our Judeo-Christian culture, and maintaining a strong defense.

The bill is an emergency measure (see article IV, section 13 in foregoing link) requiring four-fifths approval in both chambers and the governor’s assent if it to take effect before the March 6 presidential primary.

Today we learned from the Virginia Beach Republican’s staff that a hearing on his bill is slated for next Tuesday, January 31, at 4 PM before the full Privileges and Elections panel.

No, we cannot find a companion emergency bill in the House of Delegates.

We are, moreover, surprised — given the intensity of feeling about the restricted choice in the GOP Virginia presidential primary — that this Wagner bill has no co-patrons.

While the chances of its enactment for this presidential primary are remote, what is the message our grass-roots voters send if we do not get behind SB 510 in some strength at next Tuesday’s hearing?

Just another victory for the RPV Machine? We can hear the Party sachems now: “The base is all hat and no cattle. Ignore them.”

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Last month we expressed some reservations about Speaker Newt Gingrich as GOP presidential nominee in The Green Newt: Going to War With the Army We Have?

However we also wrote –

“The former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, can hit breathtaking home runs — as he did with his exposure of the invented history of Palestine, and he articulates our coming defense needs better than the other GOP candidates. . . .Certainly many Republican primary voters are at their wits end as they view the destruction wrought daily by the profoundly radical Obama Administration from illegal immigration to national defense. They sense the GOP Establishment candidates’ lack of stomach for fighting tough enough politically to stop the Chicago Way. But these primary voters certainly grasp that the former Speaker relishes the ‘sting of battle.’”

Tonight RedState chief Erick Erickson explains “Newt Gingrich Wins. What It Means: Mitt and Newt will both have trouble beating Barack Obama. Mitt’s trouble will come from Obama. Newt’s trouble from himself. But right now, the base doesn’t care.”

Influential conservative voice Erickson continues –

“Newt Gingrich’s rise has a lot to do with Newt Gingrich’s debate performance. But it has just as much to do with a party base in revolt against its thought and party leaders in Washington, DC. The base is revolting because they swept the GOP back into relevance in Washington just under two years ago and they have been thanked with contempt ever since.

Adding insult to injury, the party and thought leaders now try to foist on the base a milquetoast moderate from Massachusetts. Newt Gingrich can thank Mitt Romney and more for the second look he is getting. Base hostility will now be exacerbated by Mitt Romney’s backers now undoubtedly making a conscious effort to prop up Rick Santorum to shut down Newt Gingrich.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Erickson then points us to Ben Domenech’s “Why Newt” (Ricochet) where the Transom editor finds –

“And as much as people cited the positives from Gingrich’s performance, there was much more concern expressed about Romney’s negative performances. The rationale is simple: what if Romney can’t hack it in a debate with Obama? Failing to mount a defense of conservatism on the debate stage and in the public square - a failure that reminds conservatives of much of the worst moments of George W. Bush’s tenure – was one of the most significant reasons Rick Perry is back home in Texas today. [Underscoring Forum's.] Conservatives have no interest in people who become shrinking violets on the stage. Consider this quote from an evangelical voter in The State, the largest newspaper here:

‘No one does not have baggage. Newt’s was just exposed more because of his time in politics,’ she said. ‘I think it’s time for a bulldog president. Grab ‘em by the pants leg and don’t let go until you draw blood. That’s Newt.’”

Writes Domenech – -

“In sum: South Carolinians are wary of nominating another uninspiring moderate guy who can’t defend himself or conservatism in the public square. They’ve seen these candidates, and their ads, for more than a week now. And with a field down to four, the momentum is swinging Newt’s way because of his ability to defend himself, his record, and conservative ideas in the debates and the public square. This is something the voters I spoke to believe is essential for any nominee – and it is something that, at least in this state, Romney has failed to do.”

Readers are encouraged to visit both of these meaty reports on the South Carolina primary here and here.

And if Newt Gingrich becomes president?

As we earlier counseled --

“A realistic conservative goal then must be to ensure that the GOP leadership in both chambers of the next Congress fully understands the Green [or any other statist] menace and keeps the next GOP president right with wise conservation not Green corporatism; and when the president goes wrong, acts to set him right.

And enough of undiscerning Congressional GOP “team playing” with a Republican White House – we saw the fiscal costs of that during the previous administration!

(Via Wikipaedia)

Of course, we can’t realistically expect the Institutionalized Left, a.k.a. the Democratic Party, to want to prepare young Americans, K through graduate-or-professional school, for life in a society based on liberty and enterprise. That Party prefers and helps carry out (through sympathetic schools of education) training for collectivism.

But we have every right to expect that the GOP — both through repealing legislation that distorts sound learning and by using their public pulpits to warn citizens of what is going on in their schools — will try to bring all taxpayer-supported education back to fundamentals.

Looking at professional education, Harvard-law graduate Hans Bader in his “Judge Criticizes American Law Schools” (Open Market) declares last Tuesday –

‘A prominent federal judge has added to the growing chorus of criticism for American law schools and their failure to provide practical training for their students despite charging exorbitant tuition:

“Judge José Cabranes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit… noted that law schools are in ‘something of a crisis,’ given the skyrocketing cost of tuition, ever-higher graduate debts and a growing feeling that legal scholarship is of little use to the bench or practitioners.…

To get back on track, law schools should shift their curricula back to core courses and away from the interdisciplinary classes that have grown in popularity, he said; they should introduce a two-year core law program followed by a yearlong apprenticeship, and increase transparency regarding costs, job prospects and financial aid information.…

Cabranes lamented the move by law schools toward specialized, often interdisciplinary courses that can displace ‘black-letter’ law courses — criminal and civil procedure, evidence and federal courts. He related a story about a friend’s child who enrolled in a law school clinic focusing on housing court — but who had never taken a property law course. Core law courses should come before clinics and interdisciplinary work, even if the latter are more popular with students and faculty, he said.…’”

Competitive Enterprise Institute counsel Bader explains –

“As I noted in The New York Times, ‘I learned about trendy ideological fads and feminist and Marxist legal theory while at Harvard Law School. But I did not learn many basic legal principles, such as in contract law and real estate law, until I took a commercial bar-exam preparation course after law school.’

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Scroll through our earlier posts on taxpayer-supported education here, here, and here, but particularly read our Radical University Empires vs. Clueless State Lawmakers

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Conservatives must be thinking about the next decade, not just electing well-informed and articulate Republicans in the next election — as important as that is. For example, if we ignore what is happening in education, there will be more than some truth in what one wag says: when the last American conservative emigrates, the Republican Party will still be a thriving concern promising to manage Leviathan more efficiently than the Other Team.

“Is Congress about to limit freedom of speech on the Internet? Two bills wending their way through the Senate and the House may do just that.” — James Gattuso and Paul Rosenzweig

Today Mike Brownfield (Heritage’s The Foundry) explains the background of “An Internet Blackout Over SOPA and PIPA” –

“As of midnight, Wikipedia is shut down for 24 hours, and hundreds of other popular websites have gone dark right along with it. They are standing together in protest of two controversial pieces of legislation that threaten Internet security and undermine the freedom of speech all in an effort to crack down on online “piracy” — the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

Hollywood, the music industry, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have gone to bat on behalf of the proposed laws on the grounds that they will help protect valuable copyrighted property. And while the goal is laudable, the ends don’t justify the means. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act have far-reaching consequences for the Internet’s infrastructure, individual liberties, and innovation in the digital age. [Underscoring Forum's.]

Under the laws, upon a court order, third-party companies and websites would be forced to crack down on rogue websites — and even ones that unwittingly host or link to material that may violate copyrights or trademarks, whether or not they have knowledge of the violation. Internet service providers would be required to block Internet addresses of offending sites — a measure that Internet engineers warn could threaten Internet security. Search engines would be prohibited from including pirate sites in search results, a requirement that goes well beyond current law and may, in fact, violate the First Amendment. Heritage’s James Gattuso and Paul Rosenzweig explain ramifications ….”

The vigilant watchers at RedState spell out the political struggle against that ill-advised proposal.

Wrote RedState chief Erick Erickson this morning –

“Today many websites around the world are shutting down to protest the potential effects of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, Protect IP.

At RedState, we are temporarily suspending publication of new content today to oppose SOPA and PROTECT IP.

Both pieces of legislation are overly broad and give too much power to the Attorney General to shut down websites that may be innocent of piracy, but are accused of being engaged in online piracy.

Both pieces of legislation are written by old men who need young staffers just to tweet and run their Facebook accounts. The sponsors probably have no idea how far reaching and damaging their legislation is.”

And a little earlier this morning, Erickson reported –

“The following are sponsors of Protect IP in the Senate originally introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Both Republicans and Democrats should pledge to unite and primary these members of the Senate, however much we may love them, for pushing such harmful legislation.

If they don’t want to be primaried, they should stop sponsoring this crap. At the same time, I’m not going to primary my side unless the left primaries their side.

Next to each name is the date they signed on as a co-sponsor. Kudos to Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas for withdrawing as a sponsor . . . .”

RedState’s Neil Stevens sketched the heavy lifting required to halt SOPA –

“We celebrated Monday when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor effectively signaled the death of SOPA, the Stopping Online Piracy Act. Cantor said the Internet censorship bill would not see a vote until there was consensus on the matter. As long as Darrell Issa, Justin Amash, and Jason Chaffetz are on the case there will be no consensus on sweeping Internet censorship, so Cantor’s position basically kills SOPA this Congress.

This was a well earned victory for conservatives, and we owe the above allies thanks for sticking up for our values against formidable opposition. Barack Obama refused to pledge a SOPA veto even in the face of a massive petition from his supporters. Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith sponsored the bill, and notable tech leaders like Marsha Blackburn co-sponsored it. Well-funded groups like AFL-CIO, MPAA, and RIAA all lined up behind it. [Underscoring Forum's.]

It took everything we had to be heard on this. Our movement could hold nothing back. Erick Erickson himself had to threaten a primary challenge to Blackburn, and he was right to do it. But we got our way, and we should be glad.”

And Tim Griffin declares (RedState) –

“I am especially disappointed in a co-sponsor of the bill, Representative Bob Goodlatte (VA-6).  He has been an outspoken tool of big business against the people of the United States and their freedom on the internet.”

Virginian Griffin adds —

“Goodlatte isn’t simply a co-sponsor, he helped shape this bill as the chairman of the IP subcommittee.”

The Tea Parties were and (are) primarily about liberty — but the House of Representatives majority they helped elect apparently has difficulty absorbing that goal. The enormous political energy required to take the wheels off SOPA is just the most recent evidence of that majority’s lack of interest in giving priority to guarding our freedom effectively.

UPDATE! “Petition Drive Started for Change in Virginia Law To Allow Write-in Votes in the March 6, 2012, Republican Presidential Primary in Virginia.”  The petition announcement declares – - “A coalition of tea party leaders and activists are concerned that Virginia voters are disenfranchised by being forced to vote between only two candidates, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul.  With only two choices on the ballot, tea party activists fear, most people simply won’t vote on March 6, 2012.  Many tea party leaders do not support either Mitt Romney or Ron Paul for President.”

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Blue Ridge Forum is hearing from Virginia conservatives outraged that they cannot even write in their selection (scroll down to “C.”) in the March 6 GOP presidential primary – - now limited to two choices: governor Mitt Romney or Dr. Ron Paul.

One dedicated activist declares:

“Shame on the GOP in serving up Romney.

Many loyal, fellow volunteers are livid with GOP over this.

We want to influence GOP to drop pushing support of Romney, or risk 3rd party in Nov.”

Meanwhile Olympia Meola (Richmond Times-Dispatch) reports last night in her “Perry appeals decision to keep 4 off Va. primary ballot” that

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry is appealing a federal judge’s refusal to add four Republican presidential candidates to Virginia’s March 6 primary ballot.

Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman challenged Virginia’s residency requirement for people who circulate ballot petitions.

U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ruled Friday that while he agreed with them on a key issue, they waited too late to sue.

Perry filed an appeal on Sunday in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that ‘the court should grant an injunction ordering movant’s name placed on Virginia’s Republican primary ballot, or in the alternative, issue an injunction ordering the Respondents not to order, print, or mail ballots prior to the court’s final consideration of this appeal.’” [UPDATE JANUARY 19! Yesterday Frank Green (RTD) reported “Federal appeals court rejects Perry's bid to get on Va. Ballot.”]

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Will Virginia conservatives and Tea Partiers demand legislative relief to be able to write in their primary selections (foregoing link opens to Virginia state senator Frank W. Wagner’s SB 510 allowing write-in votes in primary elections) ?

Will the GOP State Central Committee back away from their March 6 presidential primary “loyalty oath” next Saturday January 21?

Stay tuned.

“Time for those lovely pressure calls of carrots and sticks, and a slew of  ‘I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords’  pieces.” – The Transom, January 11, 2012

Daniel Horowitz has carefully been tracking the ineptitude — here, here, and here, for example — of the GOP Congressional leadership.

Last evening he posted (RedState) a particularly insightful piece on the GOP candidates’ missteps in the race to the presidential nomination with his Romneycare, Bain Capital, 2012, and the Lost Opportunity to Assail Obamacare.

Explained Marylander Horowitz –

“Amidst this week’s contretemps over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, for some reason, we are obscuring the real albatross around Romney’s neck; the issue of healthcare.  While Romney’s record at Bain might provide Obama with his biggest campaign weapon, Romneycare will disarm Romney, and by extension, all Republicans, of our biggest campaign weapon, namely, Obamacare.  And while Bain might provide Romney’s Republican opponents with a useful political argument (Romney’s electability problems in the general election), it does not provide them with a prudent and virtuous ideological argument.  Romneycare, on the other hand, provides the Mitt-alternatives with inviolable ideological arguments as well as political ones.

Romneycare is the antecedent to Obamacare.  It dramatically distorted the free-market of private insurance; it dumped a few hundred thousand people onto federally funded Medicaid; it set up gov’t-run exchanges that disincentivize success and offer larger subsidies than those proposed in Obamacare; it placed unreasonable mandates on employers to fund their employee’s healthcare.  The net result of Romneycare was the archetypical outcome of every statist policy; the price of a vital service was purposely distorted as a means of enticing more people to become dependent upon government.

Yes, it was all orchestrated by state government, not the federal government. Such a rationalization, according to Mitt, will ameliorate all of Romneycare’s vices – vices that are identical to those inherent in Obamacare. Somehow, regressive statism is desirable simply because Romney had the ‘right’ to implement it as governor of a state.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Horowitz concludes –

“After three years of campaigning against Obamacare, we are on the verge of elevating the Thomas Edison of anti-free-market healthcare to the party’s highest honor.

With the presidential election going downhill, it is probably time to apply our Tea Party energy to the congressional elections.  In the coming days we will redouble our efforts here at Red State to elect conservative members to the Senate and House.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Earlier yesterday, Dan McLaughlin (RedState) in On Romney, Bain and Keeping Your Integrity: Free Markets and Principles warned –

“The other point I would make about integrity is that it goes close to the core of why a Romney nomination worries me so much: because we would all have to make so many compromises to defend him that at the end of the day we may not even recognize ourselves. Romney has, in a career in public office of just four years (plus about 8 years’ worth of campaigning), changed his position on just about every major issue you can think of, and his signature accomplishment in office was to be wrong on the largest policy issue of this campaign. Yes, Obama is bad, and Romney can be defended on the grounds that he can’t possibly be worse. Yes, Romney is personally a good man, a success in business, faith and family. But aside from his business biography, his primary campaign has been built entirely on arguments and strategies – about touting his own electability and dividing, coopting or delegitimizing other Republicans – none of which will be of any use in the general election. What, then, will we as politically active Republicans say about him? I was not a huge fan of John McCain’s record, but I was comfortable making honest points about the things McCain had been consistent on over the years – national security, free trade, nuclear power, public integrity, pork-barrel spending. There were spots of solid ground on which to plant ourselves with McCain, and he had a history of digging himself in on those and fighting for things he believed in. But Mitt Romney’s record is just one endless sheet of thin ice as far as the eye can see – there’s no way to have any kind of confidence that we can tell people he stands for something today without being made fools of tomorrow. We who have laughed along with Jim Geraghty’s prescient point that every Obama promise comes with an expiration date will be the ones laughed at, and worse yet we will know the critics are right. Every time I try to talk myself into thinking we can live with him, I run into this problem. It’s one that particularly bedeviled Republicans during the Nixon years – many partisan Republicans loved Nixon because he made the right enemies and fought them without cease or mercy, but the man’s actual policies compromised so many of our principles that the party was crippled in the process even before Watergate. We can stand for Romney, but we’ll find soon enough that that’s all we stand for.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

“From Bain to Main”

Following up on governor Mitt Romney’s business biography, Bill Kristol lays out some plausible goals for the GOP in his “From Bain to Main” (Weekly Standard) –

“Post 2008, capitalism needs its strong defenders—but its defenders need also to be its constructive critics. The Tea Party was right. What’s needed is a critique of Big Government above all, but also of Big Business and Big Finance and Big Labor (and Big Education and Big Media and all the rest)—and especially a critique of all those occasions when one or more of these institutions conspire against the common good. What’s needed is a willingness to put Main Street (at least slightly) ahead of Wall Street, and a reform agenda for capitalism that strengthens it, alongside an even more dramatic reform agenda for government that limits it.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

“Bankers vs. Capitalism”

Finally Irwin Stelzer fleshes out (Weekly Standard) Kristol’s theme in his “Bankers Versus Capitalism: When it comes to defending private enterprise, Wall Street is its own worst enemy” –

“Voter action at the polls is clearly indicated, although the appalling lack of choice—a Democrat wedded to the economics of the past, and either a clearly nutty or a cautious, establishment Republican technocrat—suggests that the radical change the moment calls for will not come from the political class, at least until the young Turks in the Republican party mature while, we hope, remaining, well, young Turks. So what is to be done is what can be done—remove some of the most glaring defects in the capitalist system, starting with the financial sector. That will take conservative support for change—support not only from the conservative punditry, but from the business community.”

Readers are encouraged to consider all of Stelzer’s post.  As the Hudson Institute economist points out,

“I am not one who sees in the Occupiers the wave of the future. They are not the real worry to those of us who fear for the future of market capitalism in America. It is the failure of the major beneficiaries of the capitalist system to understand that openness to reform, combined with a bit of restraint when carving up the huge pie that capitalism is capable of producing, is the best way to head off those people who would alter market capitalism beyond recognition by imposing punitive taxes, onerous regulations, investment-distorting subsidies, along with a bloated government. Those folks are dangerous enough to America’s future prosperity without being handed the gift of obtuse opposition to needed change.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

UPDATES: JANUARY 13! Hans von Spakovsky (The Foundry) reports in his “BREAKING: Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, Huntsman Will Not Be on Virginia Ballot” that “Federal district court Judge John Gibney has just issued a ruling in Richmond finding that the Virginia requirement that ballot petition circulators must be state residents is a violation of the First Amendment. However, he also held that the four GOP candidates who failed to make it onto the Virginia ballot because they did not meet the 10,000-signature requirement had waited too late to raise their constitutional claims. (Perry did not file suit until the end of December and the other three candidates joined his lawsuit last week.)” (Underscoring Forum’s.) Moe Lane (RedState) comments and provides us with a link to Judge Gibney’s ruling.

JANUARY 10! Hans von Spakovsky (The Foundry) this afternoon reports “A very big development in the ballot access lawsuit filed in federal court in Virginia by Texas Governor Rick Perry and joined by Newt Gingrich, Rich Santorum, and Jon Huntsman. Judge John Gibney just filed a five-page order in which he states that ‘there is a strong likelihood that the Court will find the residency requirement for petition circulators to be unconstitutional.’” Readers should consider the entire von Spakovsky post. RedState’s Moe Lane comments this evening “Also: if you’ve been arguing from the start that this case was self-evidently without merit, well, you should probably stop doing that. Hey, don’t take it up with me. Take it up with the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia…” Indeed!

JANUARY 7! J. Christian Adams posts on (PJ Media) about  “Gingrich, Perry, Huntsman, Santorum Virginia Ballot Access Lawsuit” - -“[But] next Friday, there will be a hearing in Virginia regarding the lawsuit brought by Rick Perry, and joined by Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman seeking to have Virginia’s signature requirement declared a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.  The case attacks the requirement that only potential Virginia voters can circulate petitions.  By way of analogy, the case argues that states cannot prohibit who can speak or voice political speech within the borders of a state, so it can’t limit Free Association Rights or political speech to in-state citizens either.  Few outlets have reported on the actual substance of the claims.  If someone cares to learn more about the actual legal issues involved in the claim, here is the pleading filed by Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum explaining their case.  Here is the pleading filed by Rick Perry.  Full disclosure, I am involved in the litigation.” The Gingrich-Huntsman-Santorum pleading concludes:  “Adding Intervening Plaintiffs (and Governor Perry) will not create a ‘laundry list’ ballot. Instead, it will give Virginia voters a meaningful choice and the right to participate in the most fundamental of American constitutional processes. Thus, Intervening Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits because the Commonwealth cannot show that its misapplied petition gathering process is narrowly tailored to satisfy a compelling governmental interest. The Court should, therefore, grant injunctive relief by mandating that Intervening Plaintiffs be added to the Republican primary ballot for the office of President of the United States.”

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Old Dominion governor Bob “McDonnell knocks Perry’s primary lawsuit” reported Steve Contorno (Washington Examiner) yesterday evening.

Contorno continued – -

“Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell criticized a lawsuit brought by friend and fellow Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who is suing the commonwealth after he failed to qualify for the March 6 presidential primary.

Speaking Wednesday, McDonnell said he doesn’t support retroactively changing state rules just because Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich didn’t meet Virginia’s ballot restrictions — 10,000 signatures from registered voters. McDonnell pointed out that in his 20 years of politics, ‘no credible candidate for statewide office in Virginia has ever had a problem making the ballot.’

‘No question we’re among the strictest of the states, but if you want to be president of the United States, you ought to be able to collect 10,000 signatures in Virginia,’ he said from Richmond, adding he twice met the threshold without issue.” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

But Tea Party activist and Virginia lawyer Jonathon Moseley told Blue Ridge Forum today that- -

“Yes, it is the same number of signatures, but it is not a fair comparison. Rick Perry’s lawsuit is that Rick Perry should be allowed to bring people with him from out of Virginia, for a national race. The provision at issue in Rick Perry’s lawsuit is whether petition gatherers have to be Virginia resident voters. OF COURSE, everyone in McDonnell’s campaign would be Virginia registered voters. Bob McDonnell lives in Virginia.  Rick Perry does not. Bob McDonnell’s race for Governor of Virginia is 100% inside of Virginia.  So McDonnell’s entire campaign apparatus would qualify as Virginia resident voters to collect petitions. McDonnell’s petition gathering efforts would not be affected by the provision that Rick Perry is challenging. “

 

The Grass Roots Are More Than Unhappy With the Primary Mess

Yesterday evening the Northern Virginia Tea Party — under the leadership of Ron Wilcox — met in Springfield to look at the “Virginia Ballot Access Crisis” asking “Can Something be Done?”

Virginia lawyer Jonathon Moseley walked the group through the basics of the legal issues related to the Primary mess.  Readers can revisit Moseley’s own filings to put Newt Gingrich on the Virginia Primary ballot here and here.

Mark Daugherty, incoming chairman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots, drove in from Staunton to introduce himself  and was able to take in the frustration of his northern Virginia brethren.

Today Olympia Meola reports (Richmond Times-Dispatch) that “McDonnell, Bolling want state GOP to abandon loyalty oath for primary.” Here is delegate Bob Marshall’s  critique of that politically reckless initiative. According to Meola, the SCC is slated to “reconsider”  the oath requirement on January 21.

Mike Giere Urges GOP Voters to Fight Their Disenfranchisement

Republican State Central Committee member Mike Giere urged the Tea Partiers to fight their disenfranchisement caused by the restrictive rules (and reportedly incompetent management) of the Presidential Primary qualifying process.

“Talk to your General Assembly members,” he strongly recommended.

Former Reagan Administration aide Giere is running for chairman of the 11^th Congressional District.  Time to move fresh talent into these RPV positions, he told Blue Ridge Forum, and to do so without demeaning the contribution of those who have served so long.

Whatever Ken Cuccinelli’s tactical reverses in trying to address the Primary uproar, the Attorney General consistently made it clear that he didn’t like the Presidential Primary qualifying process.

Why is the governor embracing this flawed system?  Stay tuned.

UPDATES: JANUARY 4! Laura Vozzella (Washington Post) reports “Va. judge allows GOP presidential hopefuls to join Perry’s ballot suit“ and Ben Pershing (also Washington Post) reports “Virginia Republicans may scrap plan for ‘loyalty oath’ in presidential primary.”

JANUARY 3! In view of the strong reader interest in the controversy surrounding the qualification process for the Virginia presidential primary March 6, we are linking here to the first set of interrogatories from plaintiff Jonathon Moseley to the State Board of Elections (Newt Gingrich lawsuit – scroll down for details). Stay tuned as more information develops.

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As we noted last night, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli backed off his call for emergency legislation “expected to state that if the Virginia Board of Elections certifies that a candidate is receiving federal matching funds, or has qualified to receive them, that candidate will upon request be automatically added to the ballot.”

The Republican leadership  of the General Assembly was –not unexpectedly — less than enthusiastic about Mr. Cuccinelli’s proposal. Readers may find of possibly related interest the announcement last Thursday of Romney supporters in the Virginia General Assembly and among Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) leaders.

Former state senator Cuccinelli said yesterday –

“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.”

Getting “Concerns” Right

Conservatives should certainly commend Mr. Cuccinelli for his Saturday initiative to try to fix the primary mess, but bring him to a better mind on his “concern . . . that we cannot find a way to make such changes fair to the Romney and Paul campaigns. . . .”

The overriding concern should be to make real choice available to GOP voters in the March 6 presidential primary — not to give such solicitude to two campaigns that developed expertise in surmounting Virginia’s Rube Goldberg rules here and here and navigating the questionable implementation of these rules confronting serious GOP candidates. The objective is not to take care of fellow members of the Political Class, but to ensure voters have an opportunity to choose one of the major national candidates in the March 6 GOP Virginia primary.

The 2012 presidential election is a watershed election for America’s future — and certainly in the minds of Virginia conservatives. Most Virginia conservatives would agree that this election is vastly more important than the image of the Republican Party of Virginia or the advancement of its sachems.

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See our posts on the Virginia GOP presidential primary here, here and here.

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Jonathon Moseley Writes About His Suit To Put Newt Gingrich on the Ballot

As we wrote last week, Virginia attorney and tea party activist, Jonathon Moseley  “… [F]iled to put Newt Gingrich on the Primary Ballot in Virginia.” The link to this filing (in the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond) is here.

Moseley wrote Blue Ridge Forum –

“We still don’t know why Newt Gingrich was kept off the ballot for Virginia’s March 6, 2012, primary election.  That is the central astonishing fact.

In a December 28 statement, the Republican Party of Virginia confirmed that it has not yet disclosed the reasons why it disqualified so many of Newt Gingrich’s 11,050 ballot petition signatures against the 10,000 required.  (One of those signatures was mine.)  My lawsuit will first and foremost find out through discovery what happened and why.  The RPV’s statement is what pushed me over the edge to take action.

The public should be told why exactly Virginia Republican voters will only get two choices on March 6, 2012.

However, informal indications tell us that the Republican Party of Virginia reviewed Newt Gingrich’s ballot petitions using the wrong standards:

First, informal talk suggests that one or more petition gatherers weren’t registered to vote in Virginia.  But that is the wrong standard.  This is the subject of Rick Perry’s lawsuit, which Newt Gingrich has been asked to join.  Perry wants to strike down the requirement that petition circulators be registered to vote.

But it is already the law of Virginia that a circulator need only be eligible to register.  Meanwhile, it is very easy to meet that standard. Any person who is merely eligible to register may collect signatures under Va. Code § 24.2-521. Moreover, a person can register to vote one day after arriving in Virginia.  So Newt Gingrich’s petitions gathered by someone physically in Virginia could be valid simply because the petition circulator could have registered to vote, even if [he] or she didn’t.  That may not sound logical.  But that is the law under Va. Code § 24.2-521: “the petition shall have been witnessed by a person who is himself a qualified voter, or qualified to register to vote…”

Second, Virginia politicos wrongly believe that a petition signature can be disqualified if the signer’s address is missing, incomplete, or illegible.  However, in November 2010, the State Board of Elections issued a regulation 1 VAC 20-50-20 which clarifies which deficiencies are “material” and which are not material.  The signer’s address has not been designated as a “material” omission.

Furthermore, Va. Code 24.2-545 governing presidential primaries does not mention anything about a signer’s address.  This is in sharp contrast to Va. Code 24.2-521 which governs all other elections.

So even the requirement for an address does not apply to presidential primaries.

Third, Va. Code 24.2-545(B) deputizes the parties as part of the governmental process of Virginia’s State Board of Elections.  When participating in the governmental work of the State Board of Elections, the party ceases to be purely private.

If the Republican Party of Virginia and the State Board of Elections will tell us what happened, we might then be able to figure out if the right standards were followed or not.”

Again, stay tuned for any developing (and still timely) remedies for the Virginia GOP primary mess.

At least — for example– counting write-ins in the March 6 GOP primary?

And how will the RPV and the State Board of Elections deal with the uproar over their “loyalty oath” for the March 6 GOP primary voters?

UPDATES! Andrew Cain (Richmond Times-Dispatch) writes January 1 “Cuccinelli reverses stand on primary.” Carl Cameron (Fox News) reported December 31 “Virginia Attorney General Intervenes in GOP Primary Ballot Dispute” – via Moe Lane (RedState).

A 9:00 PM conference call yesterday among Virginia Republican State Central Committee members quickly passed over any suggestion that both governor Rick Perry and Speaker Newt Gingrich be certified for the presidential primary.

Blue Ridge Forum, however, has just received a copy of a first-hand report on the review of the candidates’ petitions to qualify for the presidential primary. This RPV (Republican Party of Virginia) review took place last week in Richmond.

The following selections capture the thrust of the report which is in the hands of several top officials in the state GOP.  Yet the text of this report was reportedly not discussed on last night’s conference call. After receiving the report, Forum spoke with its author, and we have, of course, read it in its entirety.

“I was there as a volunteer screener when the petitions were reviewed in Richmond last week. I ask that the RPV leadership and Rules Committee certify both Governor Perry and Speaker Gingrich for the presidential primary for the following reasons.

First, it is hard to defend the fact that none of the Romney signatures were individually verified, but the Perry and Gingrich signatures were subjected to full scrutiny. It may be an announced policy but it is hard to defend to the general public. As pointed out below, I suggest that the Romney signatures may not have survived the type of scrutiny given to the other candidates if all petitions had been treated equally.

Second, there was no list of official reasons provided to the volunteer screeners for disallowing a signature. Various volunteers made peculiar and idiosyncratic judgments to disallow signatures. Several volunteers failed to do a secondary name search if the address search failed. Several volunteers routinely disallowed a signature if it was on a page with a heading from another county, even though the petition itself states that such headings are only advisory. Several volunteers routinely disallowed signatures if the complete name of the voter was not on the signature line. Those of us who are attorneys know that a person m[a]y express his signature in any consistent manner and he/she will be held legally bound by it, whether it is in Korean characters or using initials. Such things are not grounds to disallow signatures. There was no consistency.”

The volunteer screener continued –

“Sixth, there was no lawyer present for the RPV to advise volunteers on questions about signatures and petitions. Questions were answered by computer staff, the public relations person and the RPV secretaries to the best of their ability, but it casts a doubt over the process. There was a phone call to an attorney about the notary requirement during the work on the Perry petitions but that was the only attorney input of which I was aware. The volunteers really needed better advice. I have no idea how many signatures were improperly, recklessly or carelessly disallowed.”

The volunteer concluded –

“Both candidates had enough signatures in the boxes before the inquiry began. I am not asking RPV to invent signatures— just acknowledge real flaws in the review process and certify accordingly.

For the totality of these reasons and for the need for an open real primary, I ask that the RPV revise its initial ruling and certify both Governor Perry and Speaker Gingrich for the presidential primary.”

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See our posts on the Virginia GOP presidential primary here and  here.

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“The average voter thinks we look petty – small – with control issues. Just dumb.” –  a seasoned Virginia GOP organizer.

Andrew Cain (Richmond Times-Dispatch) reported yesterday –

“The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary. Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary. During a brief meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol, the State Board of Elections voted 3-0 to approve three forms developed by the election board’s staff to implement the loyalty pledge requested by the state GOP.”

Cain also noted – -

“Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, and Patrick McSweeney, a former chairman of the state Republican Party, held a news conference at the state Capitol on Wednesday to urge legislators to pass emergency legislation establishing a standard — through criteria such as polling data — that would get additional Republican candidates on the ballot March 6.”

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See our related post on the Virginia GOP presidential primary here.

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Bob Marshall Strikes Back

Virginia conservative leader Bob Marshall went to the root of the matter in his criticism of the “loyalty oath” yesterday –

“Requiring Virginia election workers to enforce a Republican loyalty oath in a primary paid for by the general taxpayer is a markedly questionable use of tax money.”

The long-time Republican delegate spelled out more objections –

“Loyalty oaths are detested by many good Republicans who solidly back our party’s principles and who have never voted for a Democrat in their lives,” Marshall said.  “And there are other concerns.

“In November, Virginia House Speaker Bill Howell and Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli, both Republicans, supported an Independent for Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney over the Republican nominee.  Does this make them suspect Republicans?

“How many conservative Democrats voted for Ronald Reagan in ‘Republican’ primaries in 1980?  Would they have voted in a Republican primary that required a loyalty oath when Reagan was probably the only Republican they would vote for?   I doubt it.”

The moral of the story? When a political machine sails into very heavy weather, one can generally expect a cascade of tone-deaf responses from those at the top.