When Howard Dean became a surprise front runner in the Democrat primary of 2004 doing so on the basis of a strong Internet-based campaign effort, tongues began to wag that the Internet might replace old fashioned retail politics. This time ’round Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich served to get people to question the old way of organizing a campaign.
But this week we’ve seen in Virginia why these airy claims of the Internet’s new dominance is a bit chimerical. We see that old fashioned, boots on the ground politics is still the best method to election.
By all methods of measure, Texas Governor Rick Perry is still a strong candidate in the 2012 GOP Primary race. He sometimes comes in second, third or fourth in polls, but is still considered a top contender for the nomination. Yet as the time came to file his petition signatures in Virginia, it turned out his campaign could not collect enough to get his name on the ballot. So, a reputed front running candidate for the nomination, Rick Perry, will not even appear on the Virginia primary ballot.
Perry isn’t the only one. Neither Bachmann, Huntsman, nor Santorum had the organization in the Commonwealth to gather enough signatures to make the ballot. Further, it was thought Newt Gingrich barely had enough to make it but as the final tally was made he didn’t have enough to make the ballot, either. And Newt is a resident of Virginia!
In the end, as the file date came and went only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul ended up clearly succeeding in turning in enough signatures to make the ballot.
Pretty good article – but the reality is that *if* you have the support of the establishment, you don’t need to build a huge organization of your own. In 2008, McCain was about as organized as Perry is today – but the RNC and local party organizations pulled together to get him the signatures he needed (and in one case bent the rules to put him on the ballot when he came up short). Romney I think decided to take a belt-and-suspenders approach just in case he didn’t get the same kind of universal support. But (for example) he didn’t really need to organize in Ohio as the local party got the signatures for him (and now will again, I guess, since the rules were changed).
The Virginia ballot requirements are tougher than they really need to be, but at the same time they’re not some kind of crazy unreasonable hurdle. If Alan Keyes got on the Virginia ballot in 2000 and Kucinich did it in 2008 (along with five other Dems and six Republicans), Perry and Gingrich really should have been able to manage it. And Gingrich’s campaign isn’t doing itself any favors with its reaction to this failure (calling Virginia’s a ‘failed system’ and so on).