More Presidential Nomination News, Notes, and Insanity

- Despite an apparent wealth of grassroots and blog support in Virginia, Duncan Hunter has failed to make it onto the Virginia primary ballot. Unlike Tom Tancredo's withdrawal, this one surprised me a bit. I figured Hunter had the grassroots to make it on the ballot, and I would've signed a petition so he could at least make the ballot (of course, nobody contacted me), even though I'm a Fred Thompson supporter. I like Duncan, I think he's a decent politician and man, and I'm sorry he didn't make it onto the ballot.

- On the heels of his dropout from the GOP Presidential race, Tom Tancredo has endorsed Mitt Romney.

- No foul play suspected in the death of Dennis Kucinich's brother Perry, an autopsy will be done on Wednesday, Dec. 26th.

- From the Green Party ranks, former Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has announced herself as a candidate for the Green Party's presidential nomination. McKinney has been elected, unelected, reelected, and re-unelected from the same Congressional seat (GA-04). Ironically, both times she was knocked out of her Congressional seat, it was in the Democratic primary (shows you her popularity).

McKinney joined the Green Party only two months ago, and is an extremely controversial (if nothing else) person. She has been accused of anti-Semitism, is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who believes Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, is an activist for the release of all documents related to the death of 2Pac (she introduced a bill to do this in Congress), attempted to bring about impeachment proceedings against President Bush, holds Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in the highest regard, wants Nancy Pelosi replaced with Cindy Sheehan...oh yeah, and she was the one who punched a United States Capitol Police Officer when she attempted to re-enter the Capitol without the proper lapel pin for identification.

Yet, I don't see anything that stands with the Green Party's stances on environmentalism and decentralization...as she hasn't done much of anything on the environment and praises socialist/communist leaders. Hmm...

- John McCain is in a fight with the New York Times over an unpublished-as-of-yet story about a key telecom legislation that is currently before the Senate Commerce Committee. The story would lay out charges that McCain may have been providing special treatment to a lobbyist. The NYT is supposedly investigating the validity of the claims, but are frustrated with McCain's strong efforts to halt any and all publication of this story, as well. The lobbyist in question states that McCain has not shown any special treatment towards her.

McCain has hired high-powered attorney Bob Bennett to "stop the smears".

- Barack Obama stated that he would consider putting Republicans in his cabinet if elected President. Some of the names he mentioned: Sen. Chuck Hagel, Sen. Dick Lugar, and...California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

- Rudy Giuliani spent the night in a St. Louis hospital after suffering from flu-like symptoms. Feeling better after the overnight stay, Giuliani decided to go home for the holidays before heading back out on the campaign trail.