Rick Santorum: For More Candidates, Except When He’s Not

Out in Harrisburg, representatives of the Republicans, Democrats and Greens are still bickering over whether third-party Green candidate Carl Romanelli should stay on the ballot. Romanelli, who would theoretically take away votes from Bob Casey, has taken lots of money from Republicans, who helped him get on the ballot.

Rick Santorum, of course, would like Romanelli on the ballot. It’d give him a chance to win. But, oh no, that’s not what Santorum spokeswoman Virginia Davis told USA Today on Tuesday:

Santorum spokeswoman Virginia Davis admits that the campaign advised contributors to help Romanelli qualify for the ballot. “We encouraged those who inquired to help with the Green Party effort,” she says. “We welcome Carl Romanelli’s entry into the race because at least he’s expressed a real interest in being up front and honest about where he is on the issues.”

Okay! Open access! More candidates! Hooray democracy! Unless… unless, of course, you’re a Republican running against Rick Santorum in the primary. Way back in March, from a Daily News article:

Scott Migli, executive director of the Republican State Committee, said more than 1,000 of [Republican Senate candidate John] Featherman’s 2,021 signatures, filed last week, were questionable.

Featherman violated a number of rules, Migli said. Some of the signers appeared to be registered Democrats and not all of the people distributing petitions were registered Republicans.

And the fact that he submitted slightly more than the required 2,000 names “threw up a red flag,” Migli said. Usually people try to get thousands more, to protect against any problematic signatures.

So, the state Republicans are for open elections with as many candidates as possible. But only when it helps them, of course.

Politics as usual.

Third candidates could tilt number of races [USA Today]
March 16: A million tears: Non-wacky Republican drops out