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By all indications, Virginia is going to be a key battleground state in the 2012 presidential election, and with polls showing President Obama with an edge in the commonwealth, Mitt Romney will need every advantage he can get.
With this in mind, this week's setback may prove to be very important.
Former congressman Virgil Goode Jr. has qualified for the presidential ballot in Virginia, the State Board of Elections ruled Tuesday, adding a potential obstacle to Republican Mitt Romney's hopes of winning the pivotal state.
The state Republican Party is challenging Goode's eligibility, alleging petition fraud, and the Constitution Party's nominee still could be knocked off the ballot.... Third-party hopefuls rarely garner many votes in Virginia, but Goode's status as a longtime officeholder -- he spent 12 years in Congress and 24 years in the state Senate before that -- could bring him more support than usual. Just 2 or 3 percent of the vote going to Goode could be enough to swing the contest.
For those unfamiliar with the Constitution Party, it's the extremely conservative party that perceives Republicans as too moderate and accommodating. There's no realistic sense that the hyper-far-right party will seriously compete in any state, including Goode's home state of Virginia.
But Goode doesn't have to win to make a difference. Republicans have fought to keep Goode off the Virginia ballot for the same reason Democrats have traditionally worried about Ralph Nader splitting progressive votes -- the GOP wants a united front against President Obama, and Goode gives those on the right an alternative to Romney, whom many conservatives still don't trust.
State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), an ardent Romney backer, is already using his office to conduct a criminal investigation of Goode's ballot petitions, so the former congressman's spot on the ballot is not yet a done deal.
But for now, Goode has become a major headache for the GOP, picking up between 5% and 9% in recent Virginia polling, and helping position the president to win the state again. Without Virginia's 13 electoral votes, Romney's options to reach 270 are that much more difficult.
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Good for Goode, bad for Robme. Things are looking up for the President.
Democracy has been gamed.
Conservative voters who strongly favor a third party candidate on a ballot understand they really have no latitude. They must go along with whoever the GOP candidate is.
Likewise with Liberal voters and Nader.
Likewise in the Maine Senate race. Really, Patty Murray has no choice. Does she actively support the best progressive voice and Democratic candidate? Or does she remain silent and give the wink and nod to the less progressive but liberal independent Angus King who will caucus with the Dems and is likely to win the election if the Democratic contender does not take too many votes from him. Cynthia Dill really is much better, but I have no choice. I am not contributing to her because it is implausible that Dill could win, and the most likely outcome of a strong Dill Campaign is that the liberal vote will be split and the Maine seat will go to an ultra conservative. That's why conservative Pacs are funding pro Dill campaign advertisement pointing out (correctly) out King's anti-labor stands.
So really, it is not the Party system itself but the voting. First past the Post (FPP) voting is a poop sandwich. Have a bite.
Alternatively we could go with real electoral reform. Obama supports a constitutional amendment to address the citizen's united issue. That's wrong and doomed to failure due to the necessary state ratification votes. The amendment needs to place the direct democracy tool of national referendums in the hands of voters. With this tool the people will be able to put up a series of contitutional reforms:
By the way, instant runoff elections used by many US municipalities and in Australian national elections does not "cure" the spoiler candidate problem. The reasons have to do with how instant runoff can be easily gamed. Anyway, the ones that achieve the goal of establishing the winner as the one who would win a two-candidate election against each of the other candidates is known as true preferential systems. The technical name is the Condorcet winner of the election. It's nothing new. Robert's rules specifies a voting method commonly used in legislatures- particularly committees that is Condorcet- Prior to the internet, it has been impractical to do such multiple round voting. There happen to be some algorithms that allow the voter to indicate their ranking of preferences and a Condorcet winner is determined algorithmically by simulating the multiple vote pairings.
There's no chance this will stand. The Cooch is a hyper-partisan slimeball who will stop at NOTHING to get his guy elected.
Cuccinelli is ruining what's left of his already tattered reputation. An AG of any state should be above this type of thing. It breeds disrespect for the law.
He's a real dis-credit to his profession.
What about Jill Stein? Anyone have any sense of what her presence on the ballot could do to Obama? I haven't been following her campaign at all.
Democrats learned their lesson in 2000. Maybe out in California we can let the idiots idiotize, but not where it counts.
Go Goode! Get ALL the bigots, morons and Confederates!
I doubt Jill Stein will get enough votes to affect anything: the people I know who have even heard of her are generally so against the idea of a Romney presidency that they're planning to vote for Obama, even if they agree more with Stein.
It seems like the only reason Goode is even a threat is because he's well-known in the state; otherwise he probably wouldn't get enough votes for anyone to pay attention.
And let's all give money to the "write in Jesus" for prez pac...
cuz that would split off another 3% of the right's vote... There's a funny somewhere in the idea that "the Romney campaign declares, ""a vote for Jesus is a vote for satan...""
Ideally, progressives and conservatives would work together to fight for instant run-offs.
"perceives Republicans as too moderate and accommodating."
That line made me do a double take. How much more right can you be?
I'd put this in the category of "every little bit helps." I think Obama was going to take Virginia anyway. The proof will be if he gets more than 50%, or at least more than Romney + Goode.
But more than that, it may cause Romney to have to spend more time, more effort in Virginia than he otherwise would have. Possibly even keep him from moderating his positions?? (We can only hope.) The best-case scenario is that he has to defend so many swing states that he loses even more than he otherwise would, putting Obama close to his last electoral college total.
Worst case, this causes Romney to pull out of Virginia and spend the time and money in Ohio and Florida.
"The best-case scenario is that he has to defend so many swing states that he loses even more than he otherwise would, putting Obama close to his last electoral college total."
That would be nice, but our side isn't greedy. 270 will do just fine.
What they need to do is send that band of women in from last night, that oughta take care of it.
What we need to do is get Carter out on the stump... He does the southern hyper-religion thing in a very statesman manner...
You know what I'm saying.
RACHEL !!!!!!!!
WTF????
Every idiot I talk to thinks Obama is responsible for the $16 TRILLION debt.
FIX THIS ASAP!!!!!!
THE RNC's Debt Clock has brainwashed people.
MR. PRESIDENT YOU WILL LOSE IF...
You do not stand up for the lies the right is making on the National debt.
They are accusing you of spending $5 TRILLION during your term.
I know for a fact that they are all GOP policies that caused it.
Fixing the GOP screw ups is not your spending is theirs.
Stimulus to save the GOP screw ups are LOANS not spending.
INTEREST on the GOP TRILLIONS of debt is NOT yours to be responsible for.
MR. President,
The $16 TRILLION is GOP Policies of the past 32 years.
Stand up for your record and denounce those accusations.
Use their debt clock against them.
Let's add up the debt under Reagan and the Bushes.
We can't blame Reagan for the debt's increase until his first budget took effect, October 1, 1981. Then, for 12 years until Sept. 30, 1993, the Republicans ballooned the debt. Later, George W. Bush took over.
Under Reagan and Bush: $3.4 Trillion increase in the debt.
Under George W. Bush: $6.1 Trillion.
Total: $9.5 Trillion. (without counting interest)
But wait, there's interest on that debt ...
The debt went up during Clinton's years only because of $2.2 Trillion interest on the Reagan-Bush debt. Otherwise Clinton would have paid off most the remaining WWII debt. G.W.Bush got sand-bagged by Reagan.
Just like a mortgage, the debt earns interest, and so the Reagan-Bush-I debt grew during the Clinton years. The average debt interest rate in those years was about 6.5%, which would increase it over 50% without compounding, but with compound interest the total debt – including interest – increased by $2.2 trillion.
Total Republican debt from above: $9.5 trillion
Interest on Reagan-Bush debt under Clinton: $2.2 trillion
Interest on $11.7 trillion after G. W. Bush: $0.3 trillion
Grand Total Reagan-Bushes Debt: $12 trillion (as of Sept. 30, 2010).
If the Republicans had not run up this $12 Trillion debt, we could easily have pulled out of the Great Recession.
The rest on the debt have been the ongoing and "unbudgeted" tax discounts, GOP created wars, corporate loopholes, etc.
And, the INTEREST per year for those GOP generated TRILLIONS.
PASS THIS TO OBAMA.
yeah baby!