No, Virginia, This is no Way to Be

Red State has an interesting little piece on the Virginia ballot debacle. Apparently they don't think much more of the process than Newt Gingrich or his campaign manager does. The site screams favortism given for Paul and Romney, given that they were able to secure half again as many signatures as necessary (15,000 as opposed to 10,000) and thus didn't garner the same scrutiny as the ones who didn't make the magic number. Well, that's just dandy. So people who get 15000 signatures don't get as closely scrutinized as people with only 14,999? Dumb. Just plain dumb.

That's my personal opinion anyway, but I can see where we, being fallible human beings, would take the lazy approach and just say "Well, he got fifteen thousand, the probability of five thousand signatures being false isn't likely." Well, to that I say bull. If anything, just by the nature of positive correlations, the more signatures you bring in, the more scrutiny you deserve, given that the percentage increase means it's far more likely that fraud WILL occur. After all, a percentage of 10000 is a lot smaller than a percentage of 15000. Fifty percent smaller, in fact. You'd think this would warrant a bit more attention from the VA Republican Party.

Not to be, apparently. Still, as I mentioned before, this is only one state out of fifty. It won't look good for the candidates that were looking forward to these primaries, but with all eyes on Iowa right now, VA seems to be small potatoes right now. But that's just me.

A Day That Will Live in Infamy...for Newt and his Campaign at Least

It would seem that even a major setback like not being able to qualify for the Virginia presidential ballot is going to deter Newt from winning the 2012 nomination. Comparing it to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, his campaign manager has stated that they will soldier on. Gotta admire the guy's guts. It's why I've thrown my lot in with him to win the nomination after the unfortunate rise and fall of first Michelle Bachmann, then Rick Perry, and lastly Herman Cain. Regular readers will no doubt realize that I was somewhat torn between Bachmann and Cain, until the Gardasil comment from Bachmann and the bogus sexual harassment allegations concerning Cain knocked them both, for all intents and purposes, out of the running. If for some reason the link doesn't work, here's the facebook note in its entirety.

By now you've likely heard that our effort to gain access to the primary ballot in Virginia was not successful. This was not due to a lack of effort by our volunteers, but the cumbersome process in Virginia.

We are exploring alternate methods to compete in Virginia - stay tuned.

Going forward, we will be as in-front of the process as possible and with the help of our grassroots volunteers we will make all other deadlines.

Newt and I have talked three or four times today and he stated that this is not catastrophic - we will continue to learn and grow. Remember that it was only a few months ago that pundits and the press declared us dead after the paid consultants left. They declared that the decision not to compete in the Ames Straw Poll would mean that Iowans would ignore us. Some will again state that this is fatal.

Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941: We have experienced an unexpected set-back, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action. Throughout the next months there will be ups and downs; there will be successes and failures; there will be easy victories and difficult days - but in the end we will stand victorious.

To help achieve that outcome we each need to spend the next 24 hours enjoying our families and friends as much as possible. Enjoy their company. Be grateful for them. Gather strength from them. The promise of a better future for our family and friends is the reason we are committed to rebuilding the America we love.

May the spirit of the season fill each of you. Merry Christmas.

Michael Krull
National Campaign Director

The analogy fits quite well, I think. It caught them by surprise, and it's put their plans in a place that they didn't think they were going to be. Some of the commenters on the thread, however, are a little less than cordial. As mentioned above in the letter, the campaign manager calls the snafu a setback. But it seems that some don't appreciate the analogy. here are a few choice tidbits:

 Pitfuful. Newt, if your team can't accomplish this administrative task, how could your administration deal with the real challenges that face the president?

Perhaps we should change the law just for your campaign? You are a part of the failed system if you can not follow the rules. It clearly says that write-in ballots will not be counted so why would you pursue this? These laws were written by the people and for the people and that includes you. Do not stoop to the democrats level and try to change the rules to suit your present needs.

Yeah you not getting on the Virginia ballot is just like Dec.7,1941. I didn't get all I wanted for xmas, now I know how the families of that 9/11 thing felt.

No you idiot, it's not like Pearl Harbor. It's called a horrendous ground game who doesn't know wtf it's doing. Why don't you just head to the moon and start your lunar colony already or something?

Honestly, people. This is not the time to insult a man just for making a mistake. And the comparison isn't in the least distasteful. Not that it matters in the slightest. For all those who think Virginia is going to make all the difference, it won't. It's one state among fifty. Newt still has 49 more ballots to try for. That being said, there are other ways to get on the ballot, I'm sure, though I admit I don't know that much about how things work in Virginia. Regardless, Newt isn't done yet. Don't count him out.

Thinning of the Herd: Perry not Able to Make Virginia Ballot

Well, look at that. It would seem that. Rick Perry's bid for the White House has become all the more difficult. As I just recently learned, and as many of us in the blogosphere no doubt already knew, one needs at least 10,000 signatures to qualify for the Virginia presidential ballot, and our Mr. Perry didn't make the cut, along with, unfortunately, my belle Michelle and Rick Santorum. While this doesn't necessarily rule them out for a term or two in the White House, it certainly doesn't bode well. I'm probably one of the few who actually found this surprising, given that I've never heard of this particular provision for the Old Dominion State, and this has been all over the net for all of two or three days, so everyone pretty much probably knows about it and has moved on. Since I"m a Johnny-Come-Lately, however, I will only just now be expressing my thoughts on the matter.

As mentioned above, this is at the same time not a big deal, and yet a very big deal. Perry, Bachmann and Santorum not making the ballot in Virginia means that effectively, the only candidates that people will be able to vote for in Virginia, a key state in any election, will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Dear Lord help us if either of these two gets the nomination. Ron Paul being the isolationist he is, and Romney being the flip-flopper HE is, either one of these two would be a bad choice to replace the current chair-warmer in the Oval Office. Romney's no doubt good at playing the political game, but his policies are more Obama-lite than anything else. As for Ron Paul, I believe this video clip says all that needs to be said about this senile whackjob's stance on foreign policy. Some of his ideas are good, but what good is a stellar domestic policy if your foreign policy amounts to "It's totally okay for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, and it doesn't matter if they say they're going to use it to wipe Israel off the map."?

What gets me more about this news development than anything else is that Newt Gingrich, my new choice for POTUS since Cain was driven out of the running by bogus sexual harassment charges, has also failed to make  the virginia ballot, proving to be a rather significant setback for the former Speaker of the House. Still, Virginia is only one state out of fifty, and however many electoral votes the state has, it's still up in the air about whether Newt will win the nod from the RNC. Personally, I hope he does. I would love to see Newt wipe the floor with Obama in a debate, but the namby pamby in the White House probably doesn't have the cojones to stand at a podium without his favorite teleprompter ready and raring to go with another prepared speech.

So, Which Holiday are we Celebrating on the 25th, Anyway?

Well, boys and girls, it's that time of year again. After months of absence due to my wanting to focus on studies in a new profession wherein I sit for eight hours and type furiously while four people speak back and forth to one another, I have returned, though for how long I cannot say.  This profession, known as court reporting, has taken up so much of my time, in fact, that I've had to neglect this site for far too long; but being that the day upon which our Savior humbled himself and came into this world wrapped in swaddling clothes and in a bed of hay is upon us, I think it's time I dusted this place off and took up the role of watchdog once again. However, I'm changing things up a bit. Instead of exclusively pointing out the douchebaggery that goes on concerning people trying to ruin Jesus's birthday for him and everyone else trying to celebrate it, I've decided to point towards the positive aspects of Christmas, which last year had eluded me due to my being as blind as the proverbial bat because of my swimming in the cesspool of politics. Wow. Quite the run-on sentence there. I  must have a lot to say regarding this particular subject. Well, let's get started, shall we?

In 2008, I finally became aware that there were dangerous people out there who wanted to change the very fabric of the makeup of this great country, and turn it into something that the Founding Fathers never wanted it to be. The election of King Barack the First tore the scales from my corneas and sent me on a mission. I was going to be like a bloodhound on meth and uncover every outrageous wrongdoing perpetrated by groups like the ACLU and CAIR. I was going to be Sam Spade, and I was going to expose every single wrongdoing for what it was on this blog and on Facebook and anywhere else I could. I became so gung ho about my little crusade that for a while there, all I saw was the negative. Add to that a wretched holiday season last year wherein my car broke down, I had almost zero money for gifts, and that turned out to be the last holiday season that I would spend with my would-be mother-in-law, and it was pretty much a recipe for disaster waiting to happen.

Still, the closer the holiday actually came, the more I felt genuine holiday cheer, and it turned out not to be so bad after all. But that's not what this post is about. This post is about the current Christmas season and the fact that even though I didn't see the good things about it last year, I can see the good this year once again. I was lost, as the song says, but now am found. That said, let's begin.

Last year at Christmas I was introduced through Youtube and Moonbattery.com to a comic by the name of Brad Stine. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. After all I'd heard and seen about Liberal Hollywood and the left leaning entertainment industry, I was floored and relieved to see the stylings of a genuine Christian Conservative Comedian (CCC for short), and a downright hilarious one at that. This post is where I first placed a video I found on moonbattery that had me rolling in the aisles because of Brad's no nonsense approach towards political correctness and how absurd the very idea is.

Well, to make a long story even longer (ha ha) I once again have come across Brad Stine in the form of the movie entitled "Christmas With a Capital C". In this spectacular film, the town of Trapper Falls is celebrating Christmas the same way they always have: by putting up a Nativity scene in the front yard of the mayoral residence. That is, until an old resident of the town files a complaint that the town is in violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause.

This of course, leads the town's mayor, a devout Christian, to find a way to fight back against the onslaught of bureaucratic hooplah and preserve the fifty year old tradition.

All in all, the movie was awesome, and was a very refreshing change from the negative stories about Nativity scenes being taken down in Texas, as this link  informs all who click it.

Before, I was afraid our Christmas traditions were under attack from so many angles that we didn't stand a chance. Now, with more and more displays of holiday cheer popping up this year than last year, perhaps the tide has been turning. Here's hoping that's the case.