A million tears: Non-wacky Republican drops out

The other day, I discussed the non-wackiness of Republican Senate candidate John Featherman, who was fighting to beat Rick Santorum for the Republican nom.

He’s liberal on social issues but also pretty libertarian, which means he’s someone who I’d totally vote for if I were a Republican. And I supported him, despite the fact he wasn’t wacky. But now, sigh, all dreams must come to an end: Featherman has pulled out of the race.

The problem was that the state Republican party challenged the signatures on his nominating petitions, and Featherman said he “didn’t have a leg to stand on.” Sigh.

The problems with his petitions:

Scott Migli, executive director of the Republican State Committee, said more than 1,000 of 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.

Well, it was a good run. Although, well, the fact that Santorum challenged you to a debate right before your signatures were about to be invalidated… well… let’s just say, “Politics as usual.” Even if it was unintentional.

Santorum’s primary rival withdraws after petition challenge [Daily News]
Tuesday: Politicians: So not ‘wacky’