https://redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/12/24/day-two-of-the-great-vagop-meltdown/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 23:13:04 -0400<![CDATA[For those coming in late, let me summarize*: both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have been excluded from the Virginia Republican primary by the Virginia GOP. This has placed the VA GOP in an awkward situation, given that: they have excluded the current national and Virginian front-runner from their own ballot; have currently no write-in option on the ballot; do have an open primary that anyone can vote in; and generally have created an environment peculiarly suited for conspiracy theories involving Mitt Romney (and ones that won&#8217;t contain the word &#8216;Mormon&#8217; anywhere in their description, by the way). The current defenses to all of this are &#8220;rules are rules&#8221; and &#8220;any campaign that couldn&#8217;t follow them are by definition poor campaigns:&#8221; I will leave it to the individual reader to decide just how either argument will play in, say, Peoria; I am frankly of the opinion that the above defenses are well-suited towards reassuring Romney and/or Paul voters &#8211; and will do very little to persuade the other 60-65% or so of likely Republican primary voters.]]>Sat, 24 Dec 2011 10:40:36 -0500<![CDATA[Moe Lane]]>https://redstate.com/moe_lane/2011/12/24/day-two-of-the-great-vagop-meltdown-n41611