VA Gov: Vote for Third-Party Candidate Goode 'a Vote for Barack Obama'

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) went on a Washington, D.C. radio show on Monday and said conservatives who vote for Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode for president would be “wasting their vote.” 

“If people want to see Obama replaced, they really need to vote for Mitt Romney, or they’re wasting their vote,” McDonnell said on WTOP’s “Ask the Governor” program. 

McDonnell said the presidential election is between Obama and Romney and, “for a conservative, voting for Virgil Goode is a vote for Barack Obama.”

“I think, by the end of the day, when that voter goes into the booth and says, ‘OK, do I want to just throw this protest vote away, or do I want to have a change in America? There’s really only one way to do that, and that’s a vote for Mitt Romney,” McDonnell said. 

McDonnell’s statement comes after Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) ruled Goode will remain on the the state’s presidential ballot last Friday.

Republicans have worried that Goode, who used to represent Virginia’s fifth congressional district in many capacities, could siphon off some of the anti-Obama vote from Romney and tip the state, and thus the election, to Obama.