Three More Republicans with a Shot at Getting on the RI Presidential Ballot

Thanks primarily to efforts he helped coordinate over the past month, Dave Talan reports that 3 more Republicans have a solid shot at getting on to the Rhode Island Presidential ballot…

Thanks to a great team effort by 124 volunteers and 22 GOP City & Town Committees, it appears that all 9 active Republican candidates for President have qualified to be on the ballot for R.I.'s March 4 Primary….We are still waiting for final results, as some local Boards of Canvassers have not yet reported in to the Secretary of State. But here are the UNOFFICIAL reports of valid signatures, as of 4:00 P.M. today (Thursday).

Eight (8) candidates have unofficially passed the 1,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. They are DR. HUGH CORT; RUDY GIULIANI; MIKE HUCKABEE; DUNCAN HUNTER; JOHN McCAIN; RON PAUL; MITT ROMNEY; & FRED THOMPSON. A 9th candidate, ALAN KEYES, is at 999 valid signatures, and at least 1 town, where 15 signatures were turned in, not yet reporting. (The 10th candidate, TOM TANCREDO, dropped out of the race, and will not be on the R.I. ballot).

Mr. Talan also takes an opportunity to remind William Lynch, Chairman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party, as well as the Projo's Political Scene bloggers, about the dangers of uninformed predicting…

To put this in perspective, let's look at the Democratic Party, whose State Chairman bragged to the Providence Journal's Political Scene reporter on December 17 that "Democrats face no such difficulties gathering voter signatures". It appears that only 5 Democrats have qualified for the R.I. ballot (Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd & Kucinich). A 6th Democrat, Joe Biden, has only an outside chance to qualify. And 4 Democrats appear to have failed (Bill Richardson, Mike Gravel, and 2 minor candidates).

Of course -- always in the interest of maintaining an accurate historical record -- Anchor Rising will link to directly to the Projo's follow-up on this item as soon as it appears.

And maybe the Dems can use this as an example in a new truth-in-advertising based marketing campaign: Democrats: We're much better at promises than at delivery.