A
Anonymous
Guest
Goode is Good Enough
The Democratic National Convention has begun, but in our view, the biggest story containing actual news is yesterday's decision by the Virginia Board of Elections to put Virgil Goede, the presidential candidate of the Constitution Party, on the Virginia ballot. Goede turned in 20,000 signatures to get on the ballot, even though 10,000 valid ones are all that is needed. Goede is way to the right of Romney and could wreak havoc with Romney's chances in Virginia.
Third-party candidates rarely get more than 2 or 3 percent in Virginia, but Goede could easily reach that level. He represented Virginia in Congress for 12 years and served in the state Senate for 24 years before that. With 36 years in public office, he has substantial name recognition in the southwestern part of the state, which is very conservative. Far-right voters who hate Obama but simply don't trust Romney might vote for Goede in protest. Virginia, which went for Obama in 2008, has been close all year, with Obama currently ahead 49% to 46%. If Goede can pull 2% from Romney and make it 49% to 44%, Romney will have a very difficult time winning Virginia and its 13 electoral votes. If Obama can win all the states the Democrats have won in the past five elections, plus the three western swing states, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, he has 262 of the 270 electoral votes he needs. Virginia would put him over the top, meaning that he could survive losses in Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Missouri, and Iowa. Romney is certain to redouble his efforts to win Virginia now. Among other things, Team Romney will try to get the Virginia Attorney General, Republican Ken Cuccinelli, to remove Goede from the ballot.
However, not all the news out of Virginia is bad for the Republicans. Jill Stein, the Green party candidate for President, also qualified for the ballot (as did Libertarian Gary Johnson). But unlike Goede, Stein is from Massachusetts and has no natural base in Virginia there, so she is not likely to pull many votes from Obama. Democrats are also far more sensitive to the effects of third parties ever since Ralph Nader got 92,000 votes in Florida in 2000, in an election George Bush won by 537 votes. The Republicans have never had such an experience.
What remains to be seen is what happens next. Will the Koch brothers start running ads in Virginia attacking Goede and praising Stein? Will out-of-state partisans start hanging out at Goede's Website or Stein's Website and begin donating money? To some extent Ron Paul supporters may get involved since Goede supports some of the same issues as Paul, such as auditing the Fed, and is generally isolationist in foreign policy and immigration.
Poll evaluated Electoral Vote count 9/5/12
Obama 332
Romney 206
Romney's news for the week has not been good- starting when he didn't get the normal bump in the polls from the convention (getting less than 1% where in comparison McCain 4 years ago got at an 11% after convention raise)-- but he may have a bigger worry with another state he needs to get electoral votes from...