by Smitty
Leaving a trail of round red noses and prop cigars, the Perry and Gingrich campaigns are appealing the slap-down already delivered for their failure to meet the Virginia primary voting deadline.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s lawyers filed a motion with a federal appeals court Sunday, seeking to win him a place on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Virginia even though his campaign failed to gather the 10,000 signatures required by state law.
The move came after another contender for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich, filed a notice of appeal Saturday of U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney’s ruling Friday that Perry, Gingrich and other candidates who failed to make the cut waited too long to pursue their legal challenges, which were brought as ballot printing was getting underway and the mailing of absentee ballots was about to commence. However, Gibney said Perry and the other candidates would like have prevailed on their claim that a Virginia requirement that ballot petition circulators be Virginia residents violates the Constitution.
See, conservatives are about working the rules before the deadline. It usually falls to the Progressives to gripe about the rules after the fact, and then try to have them changed, varying the theme of “It’s not fair” in some fashion.
If Perry can’t see the irony inherent in a 10th Amendment paladin whining about residency rules for petition circulators, he should change his name to Froma Harrop.
None of this isn’t to say that, as a Virginian, I’m happy about the situation. The point I’m making is that this kind of lawfare response is wholly unbecoming. Theses guys need to admit they fell short of presidential behavior before the VA deadline, are worsening the situation now, and concentrate resources elsewhere.
Photo courtesy of Variety
