Dealing with an embarrassing setback to his presidential candidacy, Newt Gingrich's campaign director took to Facebook over the weekend, calling the "unexpected setback" of not qualifying for the Virginia primary ballot similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
“Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941,” campaign director Michael Krull wrote on the Gingrich Facebook page, according to a report in The Hill. “We have experienced an unexpected set-back, but we will re-group and re-focus with increased determination, commitment and positive action. Throughout the next months there will be ups and downs; there will be successes and failures; there will be easy victories and difficult days - but in the end we will stand victorious.”
On Saturday, the Republican Party of Virginia announced that Gingrich, who'd said earlier last week that he had the required signatures to get on the Super Tuesday primary ballot in his adopted state, did not qualify after all.
Krull said Gingrich was “exploring alternative methods to compete in Virginia.” But the options for the candidate -- who a recent poll showed was the frontrunner in Virginia -- are limited, the Washington Post reported.
The campaign said in a release that it planned to "pursue an aggressive write-in campaign," Roll Call reported. But Virginia does not allow write-ins for primary elections.
"It might be too late, legally and practically speaking," University of California Irvine professor Richard L. Hasen, an election law specialist, told the Post.
"It is a tremendous embarrassment to Gingrich's campaign, just as it is to the others who didn't make it on the ballot," University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato told The Washington Examiner.
* With Occupy D.C. showing little signs of letting up, Mayor Vincent Gray -- no stranger to protests himself -- is conflicted about how to handle the movement, says a piece in the Washington Post. "Gray is struggling to balance his embrace of protest as a tool for social change and his obligation to run a city where demonstrations present a near-daily challenge to local officials," wrote Tim Craig.
* Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley is looking to put environmental issues including expanding wind power, restricting septic system use and increasing the "flush tax" before the state's General Assembly when it meets in January, reports the Gazette.
* Montgomery County transportation officials want to bring a bike sharing program to the county, and have applied for a $1 million grant from the Maryland transportation department, WTOP reported.
* From the 2012 general election to battles over uranium mining and the state budget, the Associated Press takes a look at the top political and government stories to watch in Virginia next year.
