Virginia Primary and Newt Gingrich

For the Republican Virginia primaries there will be only two candidates on the ballet, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Santorum, Bachmann, Perry and Gingrich did not qualify by the mid December deadline. The rules are that each candidate must have 10,000 signatures of registered voters, with a minimum of 400 from each county in the Commonwealth.

Gingrich has called the qualification standards as archaic and inappropriate. Rick Perry and his team have suggested the same. Their key supporters also blame the holiday season that the cause for their failure to garner the necessary support. Yes the deadline was during the holiday season, but that means that there are more people out in the malls in greater mass than during any other time of the year. Further, the candidates do not have a narrow window to gather the signatures, they had nearly 6 months to gather then necessary signatures.

The candidates, who are running to be the chief executive of the US government, fell short because they give attention to organizing a simple team to focus on gathering the necessary number. The failure points to the candidate’s lack of attention to detail, planning and organization. For a person who is claiming to have the skills to be President, how hard is it to have a few people assigned to gather at least 500 signatures from each County?

I suspect that another factor is at play for some of those who fell short. They simply did not believe that they would be in the race that long. If this was part of Santorum’s thinking, he no doubt is regretting that decision.

Gingrich entered the race he knew he would not win the nomination as he has too much baggage. Is it possible that he entered the race as a way to market his books, movies and himself as a “consultant”, commentator and conference speaker? Over the years Gingrich has made millions of dollars from these activities but if his profile in the wider community was starting to wane, which may well have been doing, what better way than to raise your profile than to run a token campaign for ten to twelve months.

Is it also possible that he entered the race to position himself to be the ambassador to the Court of St. James or Rome? There are some who have known him well for years who see his candidacy in this light.