This is what happens when a book tour turns into a presidential campaign. The Potomac priamry was not on super tuesday in 2008. I wonder why the change.
These are the sort of shenanigans you see in local elections, where people try to get each other knocked off the ballot.
Good for him. I’d hate to live the rest of my life not knowing if I would have finished fourth or fifth.
Here’s a decent explanation of what happened.
Basically VA puts the State parties in charge of vetting petitions to get on the primary ballot. Unsurprisingly, the GOP didn’t spend a lot of time actually enforcing the rules until recently, when a lawsuit brought the practice into question and the state GOP decided to start actually checking signitures for fear the court would take the power to vet their candidates. Apparently Newt and Perry campaigns didn’t get the memo that they had to actually make sure their signatures were legit, and so their petitions got tossed out.
Perry, a firm believer in states’ rights, is suing in Federal court. 
That’s not the good part!
The good part is this:
First Paul, now Newt…
Can’t any high-level pol keep track of what goes out under his name?!
Ginch not giving up yet.
haha omg Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!
Until I read that article, I didn’t realize that Virginia is Newt’s home state!
BWAHAHAHAHA! He missed getting on the ballot in his own fucking state! How awesome is that!
Where’s this quote come from, and why are you so fascinated with it?
Gingrich was a military brat, born in Pennsylvania. He lived in Georgia for a couple of decades before being elected to Congress, representing a Georgia district. He remained in Virginia after he left Congress. I don’t think he’s got much of a home state advantage there, any more than any of the others running for President who maintain residences in Virginia do.
Ah, thanks.
It wasn’t Newt who filed the suit, it was some Tea Party guy in Virginia, who’s inviting Newt to join the suit. The claim is the signatures were counted incorrectly.
It will be interesting to see how Newt responds. He’s already been caught on camera admitting that his campaign turned in fraudulent signatures, so if he joins the suit, well… that’s just Newt being Newt.
Well, you make it sound like they deliberately submitted fraudulent signatures (meaning, he knew about it, was behind it, whatever). He said one of their volunteers did so (meaning, he was betrayed by an over-zealous idiot). My question is, is he going for sympathy and claiming #2, while in actuality #1 is the truth?
So what is Gingrich’s (and Perry’s) argument? “We didn’t turn in 15,000 signatures, but we did turn in more than 10,000, and even if you know and I know that we don’t have 10,000 valid signatures, we should still be allowed on the ballot because…” Because we meant to have 10,000 valid signatures? They sound like kids who didn’t turn in their homework. Because you’re not really trying to win this thing? Because it should have been easy to get 15,000+ signatures in Virginia, if you were organized and making an effort? Bah! If they were good Republicans, they’d drop out now and give Romney a clear shot for Iowa.
I’m either single-handedly starting a new trend, or, um, doing something else.
Maybe he can blame ACORN.
Newt, on modern politics:
And then he shed some tears recounting his mother’s illness. I shit you not.
That’s classic frontier chutzpah right there, as it was coming from the guy who wrote "The Magna Carta of attack politics’. Maybe just as he turned against anyone else in his own party who stood in his way, Newt Gingrich of 2011 is turning against Newt Gingrich of 1994.
“Frontier chutzpah”? Never heard that one before.
Too bad none of the other Republicans have the guts to say, “Newt, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!”
It’s from Blazing Saddles
This was far and away the most polite thing I could say about Newt’s comments. My thoughts on him would get me thrown out of The Pit under the old rules.
The really scary thing is I’ve seen Blazing Saddles enough times that I understand every word Gabby Johnson says, clear as a bell.