The Other McCain

by Smitty

Via the Washington Post:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening.
Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but a Republican source familiar with the situation said that the Texas governor did not submit the required 10,000.
Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear on the March ballot.

One other amplifying bit of information:

How pathetic will it be if Virginia Republicans’ primary ballot choices are only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul? (Write-ins are NOT allowed in primaries.)

While the situation is not quite as freakish as being doused in gas and having my ear cut off for a Tarentino flick, there is a noticeable “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” feel to it all.

For all I think Ron Paul has excellent ideas on monetary policy, the handwriting is on the newsletter for his campaign. His foreign policy ideas are simply unrealistic, and disqualify him from consideration, even before the fringe ideas come into play.

I thought that the Herman Cain ejection from the race was grossly out to lunch. Yet those supporting Ron Paul need to review that and note that this is just the primary. In the hypothetical case that Ron Paul held the GOP nomination, or even show up as VP somehow, we’d have a new tidbit every hour on the hour from the nomination to the election. The Obama campaign would distort Ron Paul’s corpus to the point where BHO would be saving the country from electing Adolf Mao Stalin. Ron Paul supporters need a good night’s sleep, a cup of coffee, and some reflection.

Irrespective of anyones regard for the fellow (and I don’t personally care about any of the candidates) there is a time for idealism, and a time for pragmatism. The Constitution itself has already been substantially corrupted. There isn’t much need for idealistic defense of any virginity there, since the molestation has already occurred before most of our lives began. Thus, I really hope that the 1992 debacle of Perot does not recur. You can argue that Mitt is as big a Ruling Class knob as Bush41, and I won’t defend either gentleman, but BHO is far more diabolical than Billy Jeff. There is no idealistic argument for splitting the conservative vote, only foolish ones.

Given his high mileage, is Gingrich some kind of a compromise between the silly and RomneyCharybdis^*? From the WaPo:

State party officials are spending Friday certifying the signatures. They have not examined Gingrich’s signatures yet, but expected to do so by late Friday night. His campaign said it submitted 11,050 signatures .

Gingrich is actually a Virginia resident. If he can’t figure out the Newtonian mechanics of getting on the primary ballot in his own state, can he be relied upon to Win The Future?

I can’t resist the thought that, if Sarah Palin was actually running, she could have mustered a cool 20k signatures without excessive effort.

*For a bit of late-night, overly literary snark, compounded through the use of a cutesy little footnote.