Santorum-Paul alliance formed in WA

[Alcon]

So because it's tough and difficult means it shouldn't be done? I guess we should just concede the election to Obama too.

Either you're making a mysterious distinction between "tough" and "difficult" here or you're doing total reductionism on my argument.  Please consider re-reading it.  The difficulty of executing the election is only one of my many concerns here.

[Wisconsin+17]

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You made one substantive point about querying the desires of the republican electorate in VA, which sidestepped the issue as to what is the ultimate purpose of a republican primary in VA.

Presumably you agree with my premise that the primary is the opportunity for the republican party members of Virginia to have a say in their candidate for the presidency?

[Bacon King]

Ben, stop being dense, bro. A re-vote in Virginia is an impossibility, and the reasoning for it is a bit ridiculous anyway.

Why exactly should:

1. The Virginia legislature arbitrarily alter their existing primary laws
2. The VA GOP and RNC arbitrarily allow a new primary to occur, even though the preceding one was perfectly legal
3. The VA GOP and RNC arbitrarily (and probably illegally?) rescind the delegates that were awarded in March
4. The RNC arbitrarily ignore its own rules regarding the date that states had to finalize their primary date
5. The Virginia government (or the Republican Party, for that matter) pay the ~$10 million dollars an election would take

ALL because Gingrich and Santorum failed to get enough signatures to legally appear on the ballot, which wasn't anyone's fault but their own?

[Wisconsin+17]

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I'm looking through the election laws. I don't see anything preventing the republican party from redoing the primary over again. Maybe I'm not seeing it, but it seems to me that it could be done legally. There would be no need to alter the existing primary laws.

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The rationale for the VA GOP and the RNC is to get delegates more representative of the VA GOP electorate. Better representation would seem to me a concrete goal for both the RNC and VA GOP.

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If it were approved by the VA GOP chairman and the RNC, I think it could be done. The idea is simply to redo the earlier primary with everyone on the ballot, not to simple erase the Romney delegates. Parties set their own rules for their own primaries, and the change to the ballot can be overridden by the GOP if they wish to do so.

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True, but how many would voluntarily move their primary to a later date?

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The RNC would fund it.

[Bacon King]

Again, you're missing the fact that neither the RNC nor Virginia would go to this sort of trouble to give Santorum and Gingrich a second chance just because they failed at gathering signatures last time. It'd be a huge hassle and an irrelevant waste of money to go through the motions for this when the GOP Establishment wants the race to be done with ASAP anyway.

Besides, what happens if, even assuming that somehow a new primary is organized, Gingrich and Santorum again fail to get enough signatures to appear on the ballot?

[Wisconsin+17]

If they were doing a special election why would they require them to collect signatures? Just put everyone on who had any signatures at all.

You're right about the establishment not wanting a redo - but if the rank and file in the VA GOP want it, then it should happen, cost notwithstanding.

Yeah, I know it's crazy beans, but that would be a legal way to do it. I'm personally amused by the fact that it is possible.

[Alcon]

If they were doing a special election why would they require them to collect signatures? Just put everyone on who had any signatures at all.

This will certainly decrease costs and not at all be patently absurd.