GOP Presidential Primary: Ticket to Where … Huntsman Drops Out … Gives His 3.5% to Romney in Endorsement

It is being reported that John Huntsman will drop out of the Republican Presidential primary today.One might ask if he was ever actually in the GOP primary. After doing nothing but campaigning and putting all his political primary eggs in one basket in New Hampshire, his home state where he lives, Huntsman finished a disappointing third place. Ticket to ride, hardly …

If New Hampshire is Paradise … Huntsman has two tickets back there

Jon Huntsman will drop out of the Republican presidential race  on Monday, a campaign spokesman told ABC News.

A source close to the Huntsman campaign said the former ambassador to China and Utah governor was “proud of the race that he ran” but “did not want to stand in the way” of rival Mitt Romney, the current front-runner for the Republican nomination.

Huntsman plans to endorse Romney at an 11 a.m. press conference Monday in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Huntsman’s “third place is a ticket to ride in, ladies and gentleman! Hello, South Carolina!” … has turned into a return to sender ticket back home. But wait, Huntsman endorses and gives  Romney his 3.5%.  Did Huntsman really have any choice but to drop out? As pointed out at Michelle Malkin, his poll numbers are so bad in South Carolina and Florida, did Huntsman really have any other choice?

UPDATE I One has to wonder why Huntsman even bothered to run. Obama mouth piece Axelrod said, Huntsman dropped because he wouldn’t sell his soul. Spoken from a man who fronts Barack Obama who would know everything their is to selling one’s soul and say anything to get elected. You might want to focua on Obama and stop the hypocrisy. Many on the LEFT are saying the same about The one.

Next up, Rick Perry needs to say adios and head back to Texas.

Jon Huntsman’s withdrawal offers an opportunity for Democrats to make a play for the sliver of moderate Republicans to whom he appealed — and also to make a broader point that the Republican Party is being pulled to the right, not to the left, by its most powerful forces.

“He was simply unwillingly to make the Faustian bargains with the Right that Romney has so willingly made,” said David Axelrod, who is shaping Obama’s re-election campaign.

Judge Rules Against Rick Perry’s Virginia Ballot Law Suit … Perry, Gingrich, Santorum & Huntsman Will Not Appear on VA Ballot for March 6th Primary

NO SOUP FOR YOU …

A Virginia judge rules against Rick Perry’s legal challenge to the Virginia ballot rules. If the primaries make it to March 6 and the Virginia primaries, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman will not be on the primary ballot. so says  U.S. district judge John Gibney. Basically the judge states, the candidates knew the rules in advance, they had an opportunity to follow the rules and failed to do so. Since they did not get the required 10,000 signatures from registered voters, including at least 400 signatures from each of the state’s congressional districts, they failed to meet the standard to be on the ballot.

The courts opinion can be read HERE.

“They knew the rules in Virginia many months ago; the limitations on circulators affected them as soon as they began to circulate petitions,” he writes. “The plaintiffs could have challenged the Virginia law at that time. Instead, they waited until after the time to gather petitions had ended and they had lost the political battle to be on the ballot; then, on the eve of the printing of absentee ballots, they decided to challenge Virginia’s laws. In essence, they played the game, lost, and then complained that the rules were unfair.”

The decision means Perry, as well as Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman, will not appear on the ballot in the state’s March 6 primary.

Much more on the decision at Outside the Beltway.

The decision makes perfect sense. Everyone knew the standard to be on the ballot, if you failed to meet that standard why should you be rewarded for not following the rules.  The only names that will appear on the Virginia GOP primary ballot will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. That should be an interesting situation in its own right.