The Other McCain

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Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli Rises To The Occasion For GOP Primary

Posted on | December 31, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

There is some blowback at Cuccinelli for being a bit of a self-promoter, wanting to be first in line to sue over ObamaCare, not to mention smaller outings. Like asking what exactly Michael Mann was doing on the public dime when Mann was cookin’ him some Anthropogenic Global Warming books, or suing the EPA. I guess you either love or loathe the guy. If you’re in any of the campaigns that found themselves hating life over the VA primary ballot, you’re likely in the former category:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is intervening in his state’s presidential primary dispute and plans to file emergency legislation to address the inability of most Republican presidential candidates to get their name on the ballot, Fox News has learned.

Meanwhile, four GOP candidates on Saturday joined fellow candidate Rick Perry’s lawsuit against the state, urging the Board of Elections to either allow them on the ballot or at least refrain from taking any action until a Jan. 13 court hearing.

Only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia primary, a contest with 49 delegates up for grabs. Perry and the four candidates joining the lawsuit — Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman — did not.

The failure of other candidates to qualify led to complaints that the 10,000-signature requirement is too stringent.

Cuccinelli, who is a Republican, shared the concerns and plans to take them to the legislature while the candidates work through the courts.

“Recent events have underscored that our system is deficient,” he said in a statement Saturday. “Virginia owes her citizens a better process. We can do it in time for the March primary if we resolve to do so quickly.”

Cuccinelli’s proposal is 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.

This will be just another brick in the wall against Cooch, as far as Romney state campaign chair and VA Lt Gov. Bill Bolling is concerned, AFAICT.

I, for one, applaud Cuccinelli’s initiative. Since I can’t write in Sarah Palin, the Not Mitt Romney Imperative would have had me voting for Ron Paul (???!!??!?!?!?). Though I like him for Secretary of the Treasury, I’m not sure how much further I’d go with the fellow. If Cuccinelli is successful in un-beclowning the VA GOP primary, that lets me vote Santorum in 2012’s primary, and will be worth remembering in 2013, should Cooch still be offering an alterative to Bolling’s style of hidebound Republicanism in the VA GOP governor’s primary.

via NOVA Tea Party

Category: Virginia

Comments

9 Responses to “Virginia Attorney General Cuccinelli Rises To The Occasion For GOP Primary”

  1. Adjoran
    December 31st, 2011 @ 10:21 pm

    Changes to the election laws should be debated deliberately by the General Assembly, not rushed through after deadlines for the current cycle has passed.  That is simply never a reasonable way to change laws.

    It’s typical of the left to demand the laws be bent to fit their incompetence.  Conservatives accept responsibility for their failures.

  2. ThePaganTemple
    December 31st, 2011 @ 10:25 pm

    They have a right to challenge the outcome if they believe signatures have been unfairly thrown out.

    You might as well face it, Adjoran, we’re going to make Mitt work hard to earn his appointment to the nomination. Then he’s going to have to work even harder to earn our votes.

  3. Adjoran
    January 1st, 2012 @ 1:44 am

    No one has alleged signatures were unfairly thrown out.

    Do YOU believe they have?

    Besides, that would be a legal challenge, which is everyone’s right and quite different from seeking to change the rules with legislation AFTER you lost the game.

  4. Thane_Eichenauer
    January 1st, 2012 @ 1:58 am

    Seems to me that Mr. Cuccinelli is advocating for enclownment.  The folks that put in the hard work are already on the ballot.  The folks that didn’t qualify put a red ball on their own nose.  

    What people REALLY want to know is who is the Insane Clown Posse going to endorse?

  5. Jorge Emilio Emrys Landivar
    January 1st, 2012 @ 2:24 am

    Meh, wrt Ron Paul.  We are too broke to keep fighting overseas wars, and to maintain so many overseas bases.  

    Thats my 2 cents.

    We are also too broke for the welfare state, but people underestimate exactly how big the deficit is. Its not an either or proposition. 20 years ago it may have been, now we are just straight up too broke for either.

  6. Doug Mataconis
    January 1st, 2012 @ 7:54 am

    There are just a couple problems with Cooch’s master plan:

    1. The legislature doesn’t convene until 1/11/2012. The SBOE has said that the final version of the ballot will be approved and sent to be printed on 1/9/2012. By operation of law, absentee ballots must be available and military ballots must be mailed no later than 1/21/.2012.

    2. In order for a new law to go into effect mmediately rather than July 1st as is the ordinary course in Virginia, it would have to be passed under emergency legislation rules requiring the approval of a 4/5th majority of both house of the legislature.

    This isn’t going to happen.

  7. republicanmother
    January 1st, 2012 @ 9:02 am

    These tidbits are from a blog from Ryan Nobles, a local NBC reporter in Virginia–
    On Perry:
    A GOP activist who witnessed the count said that it became very clear that the Perry campaign, which reported to the Virginia Board of elections that it had gathered 11,911 signatures, did not come anywhere near that number. This source said Perry’s campaign may have submitted somewhere between 4-6 thousand qualified signatures.
    On Gingrich:
    “We hired somebody who turned in false signatures. We turned in 11,100 – we needed 10,000 – 1,500 of them were by one guy who frankly committed fraud.” –CNN
    (Basically: Gingrich campaign accused itself of voter registration fraud.)

  8. smitty
    January 1st, 2012 @ 9:24 am

    Doug,
      Thanks for the VA political details. Yet, even if this is more calling attention to himself than it is actually going to happen, I think Cooch’s idea is a good one.
      Unless VA thinks that having a painful ballot process is a good gut check for a candidate’s seriousness. The ballot requirements are arguably good in that sense, but the spin thus far has been “VA is recreationally archaic”, not “Hey, we’re looking to weed out the book tours”. Gotta work on those optics.
      Overall, relaxing the requirements is still worth doing for 2016.
    Thanks,
    Chris

  9. Doug Mataconis
    January 1st, 2012 @ 10:14 am

    I am all for a broad reconsideration of ballot access laws in the Commonwealth. But it needs to be done in the normal course of legislative business, not ad hoc because two campaigns were too incompetent to get on the ballot