Newt Gingrich is exploring the possibility of taking his battle to get his name on the Virginia primary ballot to the courts after failing to submit the required number of valid signatures ahead of the December 22 ballot - an event his national campaign director Michael Krull, with seemingly no sense of proportion, compared to Pearl Harbor.

The campaign has now hired Richmond lawyer and former head of the Virginia Democratic Party Paul Goldman to challenge Gingrich's disqualification. Goldman hasn't outlined his argument or strategy as yet, but he told Politico that "rest assured this is not an academic exercise."

Virginia political watchers say it probably IS an academic exercise. The Legislature doesn't meet until January 11, leaving little or no time to change the statutes to allow write-in candidates ahead of the stringent deadlines for mailing out absentee ballots...a sacred cow in a state with a large military population deployed to the four corners of the world. And that would presume there was an appetite within the Legislature to make such a change. All indications are, there is not.

To be in the March 6th ballot, candidates had to come up with 10,000 valid signatures, including 400 from each of the Commonwealth's 11 congressional districts, and they had to be collected by residents of the state. Because requirements have been tightened since the last election, the Virginia GOP recommended candidates submit at least 15,000 signatures to pad against invalid or discarded signatures.

While tougher than many states, the Virginia system does have its merits. It keeps off the ticket all those Toms, Newts and Harrys that think they can get to the White House with nothing but a Tumblr account and an inflated sense of destiny. It also assures that those collecting signatures have at least a theoretical investment in the state, rather than the battalions of election-year volunteers that cling to national campaigns like suckerfish on sharks.

Fair or unfair, it should have been an easy logistical task for the Gingrich campaign. The deadlines were well-known. Virginia has at least 5 million registered voters (including one Newton Leroy Gingrich, a resident of McLean, Virginia). And because Virginia has an open primary, canvassers didn't even have to find registered Republicans.

The campaign failed, by it's own admission, because it lacked the organization to pull it off. It's not so much Pearl Harbor as That Tuesday In April 1998 When You Forgot To Mail Your Quarterly Car Insurance Payment.

Still, Goldman argues, "this isn't a partisan or even candidate specific thing, but far more important, about the right to vote in Virginia on the presidency. The people of Virginia expect their right to choose to be upheld."

It's a great Mr. Smith Goes To Washington argument, but the counter-argument is that the right to vote for president and the right to vote for a presidential candidate are separate and distinct things. It's less a vote than a polite request.

When Virginians go to the polls on Super Tuesday, they're voting for a candidate in a tangential sense, by telling their 49 delegates to the Republican Convention whom they would like them to vote for. But by the time those delegates get to Tampa in August, that candidate may not even be in the race, and even if they are, the delegates are not bound to vote for them.  

Nor are the voters of the Commonwealth denied their right to vote for Gingrich in the general election. Every American has the right to vote for the candidate of their choice, be that choice Newt Gingrich, Jesus Christ, or their dog, Sir Barfsalot.

This was a test: of organization, of money, of attentiveness, and of commitment. Mitt Romney and Ron Paul met the challenge put before them by the Commonwealth. Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum did not. Beyond anything else, it's a good sign of who is ready for prime time...and who is not.