Despite Newt Gingrich’s public claims of victimhood regarding his failure to be placed on Virginia’s primary ballot, it is clear that his managers simply neglected to read the rules. He was required to have at least 400 signatures from each of Virginia’s 11 Congressional districts as a part of the total 10,000-signature qualifying requirement.
It is astounding that an organization vying for the job of providing administration of a nation cannot review and comply with requirements met by two other candidates (Romney and Paul). Gingrich lashed out at Virginia’s “failed” primary system, declaring that an aggressive write-in campaign would overcome what his campaign manager referred to as a Pearl Harbor-level setback.
Let this Virginian respond to Mr. Gingrich’s whining and excuses in the clearest terms:
First, the “failed system” is Gingrich’s. His managers actually dispatched numerous representative volunteers throughout Virginia without bothering to know how to utilize those efforts correctly in order to yield the intended result: placing their candidate on Virginia’s primary ballot. I can imagine that many of Gingrich’s Virginia supporters might be amending their vision of Gingrich as an intellectual powerhouse, given their own wasted efforts on his behalf.
Second, another few minutes of due diligence would have informed the Gingrich team that Virginia code prohibits write-in candidates on primary ballots. Their “Plan B” to utilize a strategy not legally available leaves voters wondering exactly what the Gingrich campaign’s state-by-state primary planning strategy might be.
And lastly, I consider this snafu to have been completely self-inflicted, bringing to my mind the possibility that, rather than Pearl Harbor, Custer’s Last Stand may be a better historical comparison.
