Former Democrat-turned-Independent-turned-Republican and now Constitution Party presidential candidate Virgil Goode has submitted more than 20,500 petition signatures to get on the Virginia presidential ballot, but it remains to be seen whether the Republican Party can keep him off. In Pennsylvania, home of Goode’s weird running mate James Clymer, the Republican Party was successful in getting them off the ballot by threatening legal action, something that could have cost Goode’s new party hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Pennsylvania GOP must have been scared of Clymer’s record of running for various state offices and garnering from 4% to 13% of the vote.
In Virginia, the Board of Elections has already asked Ken Cuccinelli to look into some of the petitions from northern Virginia because it appears the same person filled in the names of various petition signers, something that kept Newt Gingrich off the Republican primary ballot a few months ago, but Gingrich had few signatures to spare.
Since Goode practiced petition overkill in exceeding 20,000 signatures and over 1,000 in each congressional district, I don’t see how he can fail to qualify for the November election, barring some bizarre shenanigans that would disqualify more than half of his signatures. So, what exactly does Goode on the ballot mean for the presidential race in Virginia? I’ll contend that Willard “Mitt” Romney will lose hundreds of votes at a minimum in the 5th and 6th districts because people will be able to vote for Goode.
Even if Goode only gets 1-2% or so of the vote in Virginia, that could pretty much guarantee that President Obama wins the state and with it, most likely a second term. Goode fits the ideal of the older, white, zenophobic, homophobic, knuckle-dragging, reality-deniers who form a crucial section of the Tea Party movement. So, I say, “Go Virgil!”
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