Gingrich Is Atop The Polls in Virginia

From Quinnipiac:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich jumps into a slight 30 - 25 percent lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among Virginia Republicans in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. No other candidate tops 9 percent.

Great news for Newt, right? Well, not really:

In a major blow to their presidential campaigns, both Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich will not be on the ballot for Virginia’s March 6 primary.

Both candidates failed to meet the state’s requirement of 10,000 signatures, according to the state party, and thus do not qualify.

“After verification, RPV has determined that Newt Gingrich did not submit required 10k signatures and has not qualified for the VA primary,” the state GOP said via Twitter on Saturday. Perry’s rejection was announced late Friday.

Perry not making the ballot is no big surprise, given that he is an idiot. Gingrich, however, is supposedly the intellectual leader of the GOP. But given that recent history indicates the the Republican Party is made up almost entirely of morons, maybe this is Gingrich's ploy to appear more like a dumb-shit to the GOP base.

UPDATE: The stupidity continues:

After not making the ballot in Virginia, Newt Gingrich's spokesman said he would "work with the Republican Party of Virginia to pursue an aggressive write-in campaign to make sure that all the voters of Virginia are able to vote for the candidate of their choice."

But there's a problem, CNN notes: "Virginia state law specifically prohibits voters from writing in candidates not on the ballot in primary elections."

Merry Christmas, Newt.

Clever

Bad Lip Reading: Rick Perry's "Strong" ad - watch more funny videos

Quote of the Year

"The higher a monkey climbs up a pole the more you see of his butt. The Speaker is very high up the pole right now and we'll have to see if people enjoy the view."

- Chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, on Newt Gingrich.

Quote of the Week

“Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top Al-Qaeda leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement… or whoever’s left out there.”

Barack Obama, responding to insinuations from some GOP presidential candidates that he is an appeaser.

More please.

One thing that has pissed me off about Obama is his reluctance to tout his many foreign policy achievements. If George W. Bush had this many successes under his belt less than three years into his presidency, we would have seen him prancing around in a flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier screaming "mission accomplished" over and over again as he repeatedly pissed himself.

Maybe Obama thinks his successes speak for themselves, but if the GOP is stupid enough to go after him on foreign policy, I expect to see more of this from him.

By the way, isn't it great to have a president who isn't a pussy when it comes to foreign policy, particularly when it comes to dealing with Pakistan? Bush and Cheney's weakness in this area basically rose to the level of treason.

Quote of the Week

"Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods, have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day, they have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it is illegal."

Class Warrior Newt Gingrich, defending his previously-stated position that child labor laws should be repealed (no wonder the Democrats are praying that this guy gets the GOP nomination).

And in a completely related story, GOP pollster Frank Luntz gives this advice to his fellow Republicans:

Don’t say that the government ‘taxes the rich.’ Instead, tell them that the government ‘takes from the rich.’

“If you talk about raising taxes on the rich,” the public responds favorably, Luntz cautioned. But “if you talk about government taking the money from hardworking Americans, the public says no. Taxing, the public will say yes.”

Republicans should forget about winning the battle over the ‘middle class.’ Call them ‘hardworking taxpayers.’

“[Democrats] cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers. We can say we defend the ‘middle class’ and the public will say, I’m not sure about that. But defending ‘hardworking taxpayers’ and Republicans have the advantage.”

Luntz is also counseling Republicans not to use the word "capitalism." It sounds like the Occupy Wall Street movement might actually be having an effect.