As shown in this article at CBSNEWS.com, 2012 presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is mighty sore about not getting on the ballot for the Republican primaries in Virginia. He failed to get the appropriate amount of signatures on a petition to get him on the ballot. Why he’s mad, I’m not sure.

The first rule in US presidential elections is be on the ballot. I know of this one first hand because in my own state of Tennessee, write in ballots are not counted unless the election is close enough for them to make a difference. In Virginia write in ballots may not even be legal in the primaries. Newt failed on this big time and probably deserves to lose based on this gaff alone. He couldn’t even get on his own party’s primary ballot! If he can’t even get things done in his own party, how can he be expected to work with other parties to get stuff done?

The second rule is, don’t screw up the primaries. Hillary Clinton learned this in 2008 by letting her own party screw her. She let them “punish” Florida and Michigan, two states where she enjoyed a massive lead, by not counting their delegates because they moved up their primary elections by a few weeks. By toeing the party line and not having some backbone, she not only failed the people of those states who voted for her, she cost herself the nomination. Her lack of leadership in this area cost her dearly and Newt’s lack of leadership will cost him as well.

The funniest thing in all of this is Newt’s sense of entitlement.

“Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot.”

Really Newt? I would say that only a failed system would automatically allow candidates from just two parties, neither of which have any distinguishable difference to anyone outside the US, to be on the ballots and would deny the same access to other parties and individuals. The only failure here was that Newt Gingrich couldn’t find 10,000 valid signatures for a ballot petition in a state that is literally a stone’s throw from his old stomping grounds in D.C.