Perry, Gingrich lose Virginia lawsuit

The rules are the rules are the rules but most Republicans already know that.

Unfortunately, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Jon Huntsman decided to act like poor sports after the contest and filed a lawsuit to get their names on the Virginia Presidential Primary ballot after, 1) failing to submit the minimum 10,000 required signatures (Perry, Gingrich), or, 2) failing to even submit any signatures (Santorum, Huntsman). If these candidates had a problem with the rules in Virginia, they should have tried to make changes before the deadline.

Fellow Bearing Drift colleague Shaun Kenney posted on the judge's decision and noted:

In essence, the court did not necessarily rule on the validity of Virginia’s primary access rules (and in fact, reinforced Virginia’s interest in ensuring that primary candidates had a broad base of support), but did slam Perry rather forcefully on the late timing of the lawsuit — namely, after Perry failed to get on the ballot — which demonstrated more of a last minute plea rather than a serious constitutional concern.

The text of the judge's opinion can be found here. Good call from the judge to uphold the rule of law. If changes are to be made, it is up to the General Assembly, not the Republican Party of Virginia.

Meanwhile, the primary will be held on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul on the ballot. Game on!