Judge rejects Perry, GOP hopefuls for Va. ballot

[Newsjock]

Source: USA Today

A federal judge today rejected Rick Perry's lawsuit challenging Virginia's ballot requirements, meaning Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will be the only major GOP candidates on the ballot.

U.S. District Judge John Gibney said in his ruling that Perry -- along with GOP candidates Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum who joined in the Texas governor's lawsuit -- waited too long to file the complaint against the state's ballot requirements.

"They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago. ... In essence, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair," Gibney wrote.

With the Virginia primary scheduled for March 6, Gibney said that there isn't enough time for Perry, Gingrich, Huntsman and Santorum to collect the required 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/01/Rick-Perry-Virginia-ballot-lawsuit--602664/1

[subterranean]

1. Doesn't matter for Perry since he'll be out of the race by then.

I wouldn't be surprised if Huntsman and Gingrich drop out before that too.

[pinto]

2. Yep. Heard the news blurb on CNN, as well.

Love Gibney's statement -

"they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair"

[DCKit]

3. Six weeks isn't enough time to collect 10K signatures?

That judge must think they're even bigger losers than we do.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Ballots must be mailed out by Jan 21

a little later in the article. So, only about 1 week.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. which pretty much guarantees Paul will stay in the primary till then

it'll be interesting to see how the anti-Romney vote goes - to Paul, stay at home, or spoil the ballot?