The first "primary" race in Virginia just took place today! And Romney won.

At 1:30 today, Mitt Romney filed 15,000 signatures to meet the requirements for Virginia presidential primary.

Every campaign in the race will tell you that Virginia has the most difficult process to get on the ballot. You have to submit 10,000 signatures with at least 400 signatures from each 11 congressional districts. Each county or city entity has to have its own petition page for signatures and you need the voter address and in some cases the last four digits of the social security number for it to be valid. People who collect signatures have to be registered voters in Virginia (in other words you can't farm this out to high schoolers).

The VA ballot submissions opened up yesterday and as far as we know Romney is the first candidate to file.

Other candidates like Huckabee are paying 50 cents per signature. Thompson and Edwards are just getting started.

It will be interesting to see on December 14th who the actual candidates will be on the ballot.

As background, there are only a handful of paid staffers for Romney in Virginia but dozens (if not hundreds) of volunteers chipped in during the elections in November to help get the signatures required. Whole Saturdays were dedicated to rounding up the needed votes. Unlike other campaign Romney did this with a grassroots flare and did not outsource it.

Kudos to Team Romney, Lt. Gov. Bolling, and the VA team for making this happen.

This is one more example of why Romney is the best candidate to face the formidable forces of the DEMS in the general election.

Labels: grassroots, primaries, primary, Virginia

As many of you know I've had my head down engaging with a new and exciting job for the Lighted Candle Society. The non-profit motif is new to me so I'm scaling back on the public political musings for a bit... but I thought I'd jump in for a quick sortie to throw a few timbers on the fire.

With that gambit of mixed metaphors... I'll begin:

• Senator McCain: Frankly, I'm shocked. How do you spoil and waste 7 years of Presidential build-up, organization, supporter lists, and serious ground game? I have no idea. Messrs. Nelson and Weaver can tell you but they won't until the primary is over. Months ago I defended McCain saying he was here to stay. I am seriously stunned that he seems to be on the way out.
  
  
• Thompson: Will someone pull the trigger for this guy? I'd love to have him announce anytime here. Or did I miss it? Also, FDT Redstate ra-ra's are finally getting a taste of defending a candidate. The heat is pretty constant now but Fred is doing pretty well. But I doubt we'll hear much about any flip-flopping from here out. As Patrick R. pointed a little bit ago, he's OK with flip-flopping. I think a lot of bloggers' opinions will follow suit.
  
  
• Rudy: This is weird. Rudy has a lot of money and a lot of name power and good early polling numbers but not a lot of ground game? As a frank admission I should say that Romney insiders really had no idea where he was going to end up at Q2. His strong showing wasn't surprising but it certainly wasn't good news to Mitt & Co. Will his poll numbers continue to fade? Can he pull off a primary win without a good showing in Iowa or New Hampshire? How will he use his war chest?
  
  
• Mitt Romney: Here's the one remaining question for Team Romney: Is this a traditional primary election or not? In other words, if the status quo remains... Romney wins. Period. If this is like any other Primary election in the past and if Romney keeps his predominant lead in IA and NH... he will win.

I've alluded to the near science behind primary elections previously. Basically it comes down to this: for every margin percentage point, the winner of the New Hampshire primary is 8% more likely to win the nomination. If Romney maintains his 9-10 point margin in New Hampshire he has an 80% chance of capturing the GOP win.

Here's a question that Patrick is looking to answer about Fred:

Now, don't get me wrong. Voting is important. But doesn't fervency count for a lot in a volatile primary situation?

Patrick's referring to the generous nods that Fred has been throwing towards bloggers.

So, my question is this: will a virtual campaign built at the "new" grassroots trump the "traditional" grassroots? Or will the non-stop flesh-pressing and Mitt-Mobiling crank the decades of precedent and win the election?

Labels: grassroots, ground game