Well, the entertainment level of the upcoming primary season just dropped a couple of notches. From Reuters, via the New York Times:
Colbert, who has admitted he does not want to be president but just wanted to run for it in his native state of South Carolina, had filed for the Democratic ticket earlier on Thursday and paid the $2,500 filing fee.
Hours later, the party’s executive council voted 13-3 against allowing him on the ballot for the January 26 primary contest, party spokeswoman Keiana Page told Reuters. The eight other major Democratic candidates were accepted, she said.
It was already known that Colbert was deciding not to get a spot on the GOP ballot, due to the $35,000 filing fee required for that primary, and the need to avoid federal election laws that kick in at $5,000 of spending.
I can understand South Carolina’s decision to keep the ballot to “real” candidates (although, that leads one to wonder why Gravel and Kucinich will appear)…but it’s somewhat disappointing to see them passing up the opportunity for a lot of interest to be generated about Colbert.
I wonder if we’ll start hearing Colbert pushing himself as a write-in candidate in South Carolina.