Rule of Law? Hello? The Refucklickers would be the FIRST to apply this rule to anyone else.

The only elected office Rmoney ever held, he was technically disqualified from - to run for Governor Of Massachusetts, you have to meet a state residency requirement, and Rmoney had legally declared himself to no longer be a resident of Massachusetts for the preceding several years, filing his taxes instead as a resident of Utah. He was permitted to overcome that legal issue (by paying the back state taxes he'd escaped by lo longer being a Massachusetts resident), and I'm confident he'll be permitted to weasel out of this one as well.

Too funny!

Alas, they'll find some judge to rule in their favor under the questionable legal principle of "common sense." Then there will be some big battle in the upper courts.

Here's the rub. Romney is unlikely to win Washington State, anyway. If the Dems can be depicted as fucking with the electoral process, justly or otherwise, the Rove Hysteria Machine® will find a way to make hay with donors, SuperPACs, and voter turnout in other states. (Meanwhile, of course, their own voter suppression/deregistration efforts are perfectly okay. Sigh...)

Goldy, You are really stretching it on this one. The law also mentions Presidential nominees, and my guess is that Party affiliation can be attained after the primary election. Convention nomination is not the only way to attain party affiliation and keep above the 5 percent.

This is all a direct result of the two major parties' efforts to suppress minor parties. If they allowed fair access to the ballot, they wouldn't have created this situation.

Goldy, did you do all the research on this one? How did you get the idea to look into this to begin with?

Washington is going for Obama anyway, so doesn't really matter if he's on the ballot.

@7, Yes, Washington will go for Obama, but this fantasy scenario is really directed at discouraging enough Republicans from voting so that Inslee can beat McKenna.

Ms. Taft, make yourself useful!

Put the tin foil hat down Goldy

It'd really put a dent in Romney's plans if he didn't win Washington, oh, wait.

And this, my friends, is a glimpse into how the Democratic Party machine stifles dissent amongst it's own ranks; even if they know there is a majority, they will use technicalities to subvert the democratic process. This is what Goldy has signed onto as a legitimate means of enforcing the doctrine of the top-heavy leadership, when the "rabble" does not agree.

Because Goldy is such a loudmouth, he can project this attitude onto the Republican opposition, hoping that people will be blinded by the obnoxiousness of them, to overlook this way of stifling democracy. But what he articulates is a corner stone of what is wrong with Democrats, and Democratic leaders, and the Party itself. Liberals turn a blind eye to in in their ranks but scream bloody murder when they are subjected to it in government.

Thank you Goldy for the honest insight as to why people join the party once and go away. And why real liberals and not machine hacks like you stay away. It is because of this kind of bullshit and hypocrisy.

@14: So a rumor, published in an alt weekly, of a scenario that's going nowhere is now evidence of the "Democratic Party machine"? Keep dreaming.

Whatever, Romney isn't going to win Washington state anyway.

@14

"And this, my friends, is a glimpse into how the Democratic Party machine stifles dissent...

...because Republicans don't try to disenfranchise Americans from voting by the millions, with voter ID laws, in the hopes of cutting down the 'urban' votes by 5% or so.

Hell yeah Sam Reed should remove Romeny from the ballot. His job isn't to do whatever people think is cool and shit. It's to follow the law.

Because if this was a Democrat, you bet your ass they'd demand taking his name off the ballot, chanting "voter fraud" all the way.

And the reason Rossi didn't want to be called a Republican on the ballot is because he wanted to fool voters into thinking he was an independent. Because in fact, not just figuratively, not just in legal technicalities, the Republican Party is a minor party in Washington. Rossi's unwillingness to go by the GOP brand is proof of that.

Ho ho! It would be really fun if the Democrats had the media and memetics skills to push this in court and frame the GOP as the bad guys, but they don't. +1 @3.

The levels of partisan stupid to this over-reaching post have achieved a brand new stratospheric high. Even for Goldy.

If your every headline has to contain the qualifier "could" then chances are it's bullshit.

Romney "could" be a secret Muslim Homosexual Socialist.

@ 14, while your analysis of Goldy's case is laughable, you have inadvertently demonstrated why the left often loses despite genuinely having our nation's best interests at heart. You simply won't agree to work for a larger common goal if your pet issues aren't part of the discussion. You won't take a disciplined approach because that means putting those issues aside temporarily.

Bullshit and hypocrisy is Goldy's forte, but you're no stranger to it yourself.

I have another reason to like the top 2 primary.
If your party is too stupid and lazy to select its own candidate then I'm not sure that you are so much a major party but a loose collection of like minded people.
A private party should take care of its own business and not rely on popular vote of the public, for if they do, and the candidate is not completely to the private party's preference, then that's just too fucking bad.
This goes for the shitfest in the 1st CD, too.

@24: The Democratic Party will always have a harder time coalescing to get anything done, for the simple fact that it is the party of progress, whereas Republicans are the party of conservatism.

Conservatism at its heart is about keeping things the same, or trying to bring them back to a false "golden era." So by nature, Republicans do not have to push for new ideas or try to arrive at them. The ideas have already been established.

Whereas if you are a progressive, you need new ideas and outlooks to fuel the party. So it is always going to be a more fractured party as there is naturally going to be more diversity in thought.

It is the exact same reason why it is really easy to get deeply religious people to follow a leader: they are not looking for new ideas or modes of being. Not that this has much to do with #14's deeply stupid comment.

Silly Slog, laws are only there to prevent liberals from voting, and for prosecuting liberal politicians.

Says so in the Bible.

The story was picked up, with further analysis, at Ballot Access News:

http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/08/01/…

This story was picked up, with added analysis, by Ballot Access News:

http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/08/01/…

One thing we can all agree on though is that the US fuckin' pwned in women's gymnastics.

USA! USA! USA!

I think you forgot that there are statewide offices that are not federal offices. It's strange that you missed that, because the only federal statewide office is Senator and US Senator is mentioned explicitly in the text of the law.

Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Commissioner of Public Lands are just a few of our many statewide non-federal offices.

Like a boss, Goldy! ;-)

Whoops, I retract my previous comment. There were no other partisan statewide offices up for election in 2010 outside of US Senator.

There were elections for statewide judicial offices, but those are non-partisan, so no party officially nominates any particular candidate.

@32 - And which of those races were contested in 2010? Don't see that he missed any of those elections.

Goldy - I'm a bit confused by the formatting of the post. Is this all your research and material, or are you quoting someone else in the blockquote sections there?

Action Slacks,

" I'm a bit confused by the formatting of the post. Is this all your research and material, or are you quoting someone else in the blockquote sections there?"

It's pretty clear that Goldy is quoting "a public records request that was forwarded [his] way."

@14, have you met doomy, @27? I have a feeling you two would get along like a paranoid delusional house on fire.

Looks like y'all are clearing out the Repubs in the West Coast. Just read an article about the dire condition of Repubs in California. GOOD TIMES!

If anyone had actually checked, Katie Blinn, state co-director of elections and an attorney, says the two major parties still get automatic slots on the ballot for their tickets:

"The Rs and Ds are major parties.

The Legislature has not repealed the old RCWs that were put in place for the old pick-a-party primary system, so many of the old definitions are still on the books. All three levels of federal courts (District Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court) have commented at some point in the 8 year litigation over the Top Two Primary system that Initiative 872 impliedly repealed the old party nomination procedures for the pick-a-party primary. The upshot is that we have adapted many procedures for the Top Two Primary in WAC.

WAC 434-208-130 define major and minor political parties. The relevant paragraphs of the WAC state:

(1) For purposes of RCW 29A.04.086, "major political party" means a political party whose nominees for president and vice-president received at least five percent of the total votes cast for that office at the last preceding presidential election. A political party that qualifies as a major political party retains such status until the next presidential election at which the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of that party do not receive at least five percent of the votes cast.
(2) For purposes of RCW 42.17A.005, the secretary of state recognizes as a minor political party a political party whose nominees for president and vice-president qualified to appear on the ballot in the last preceding presidential election according to the minor party nomination process provided in RCW 29A.20.111 through 29A.20.201. A political party that qualifies as a minor political party retains such status until certification of the next presidential election. This definition is for purposes of chapter 42.17A RCW only.

Because the Republican and Democratic nominees for President and Vice-President both received at least 5% of the total votes cast for that office in the 2008 presidential election, those parties retains their status as major parties until the next presidential election at which their nominees do not receive at least 5% of the votes cast."

It states that only a candidate from the party has to obtain 5% to maintain "major party" The nominee needing to obtain 5% is for establishing the party as "major party"

The author of this did not quote the entire RCW 29A.04.086 and then took the first sentenance out of context.

I don't know why I am even responding to a gernalist who puts swear words in the title.

RCW 29A.04.086

Major political party.

"Major political party" means a political party of which at least one nominee for president, vice president, United States senator, or a statewide office received at least five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding state general election in an even-numbered year. A political party qualifying as a major political party under this section retains such status until the next even-year election at which a candidate of that party does not achieve at least five percent of the vote for one of the previously specified offices. If none of these offices appear on the ballot in an even-year general election, the major party retains its status as a major party through that election. However, a political party of which no nominee received at least ten percent of the total vote cast may forgo its status as a major political party by filing with the secretary of state an appropriate party rule within sixty days of attaining major party status under this section, or within fifteen days of June 10, 2004, whichever is later.

Also, Felons can't file for US President, so that leaves Comrade Mitt crying out in the Cold with his Red Chinese compatriots.

Hey guy, you are astoundingly clueless. Please edit this post so you won't confuse people.

The GENERAL election was between an (D) and an (R) and the Republican candidate in the last even General election got over 40% of votes cast.
vote.wa.gov /results/20101102/US-Senator.html

The Republican party does not need to hold a primary as the Central committee and other officers of the statewide Republican party signed papers for the candidacy of Rossi. The Secretary of State does not list them as independent candidate.

You are so mistaken here, and any court will rule that the Republican party has met the requirement of having 5% vote cast in many decades and even if you were right about this technicality (which you are not) the party would get 5% in any even year with a statewide candidate and are, in fact, a major party.