What about Tom Martin?

Thanks to Alex for pointing out this article in the PG. It's funny that we focused on different things:

State officials last night also were counting petition signatures submitted by the Libertarian Party's U.S. Senate candidate, Tom Martin.

It's an outrage that Russ Diamond had over 38,000 signatures and still didn't get his name on the ballot. And Hagan Smith of the Constitution Party, also failed to meet the requirement for ballot access. He had about 20,000 signatures. Things have to change, if you can get that many people to sign your petition you should be on the ballot.

We all know that Wilkes-Barre's own Carl Romanelli and his fellow Green Party candidates appear to have enough signatures. We will see if the petitions will stand up to the challenges that are sure to come. Paying people to circulate petitions usally results in a lot of padding to meet the quota. The Greens didn't have enough volunteers to do the job so they outsourced it. I hope they paid those people a "living wage." Who paid for this effort? TPM (via 2 Political Junkies)has the scoop:

The party raised $66,000 for the effort, all of which they spent on a private company to collect signatures. TPMmuckraker was able to establish that at least $55,000 of that came from conservatives.....The $66,000 came from twenty donors, in contributions ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. None of the donors have a history of giving to the Green Party.....The Green Party of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania hadn't received a dime in contributions before June of this year. The $66,000 given in that month was an amazing take for a Green Party committee, almost equalling the total ($77,160) received during the 2006 election cycle by all other local and state Green Party committees in the country combined.

Why should Ricky help a Green? Remember Vince Galko, his campaign manager, says it is because of his interest in free debate. "Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree that the democratic process should be open and welcoming to people of differing positions," Galko said in a letter posted on Santorum's Web site.

So why didn't they help Tom Martin?

Slobby has more about illegal campaign donations.

Lou argues the merits.