Can Newt Gingrich recover from his Virginia ballot 'debacle'?

The Republican frontrunner couldn't even qualify for his adopted home state's primary ballot. How badly will this damage his presidential hopes?

Newt Gingrich has been left off the Virginia GOP primary-election ballot, a major blow to his presidential campaign.
(Image credit: Richard Ellis/Getty Images)

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has failed to gather enough petition signatures to win a spot on Virginia's Republican primary ballot, a potentially devastating blow to his campaign. Virginia holds 10 percent of the GOP convention delegates up for grabs in the March 6 Super Tuesday primaries. The Gingrich campaign called the exclusion an "unexpected setback" — likening it to Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor — but said the former House speaker would bounce back and win the nomination. Can he really rebound?

This will be a deal-breaker for some Republicans: It's hard to see how Gingrich recovers from this, says Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Virginia is his adopted home state and, if losing the primary in your home state is a disaster, "the failure to even qualify for the ballot is an even worse failure." Gingrich's inability to complete this basic task will only fuel doubts about his managerial abilities, and strengthen the case for backing Mitt Romney "on competence alone."

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