After the first three debates on National television, three mainstream news channels featured polls asking the American people who won. After the first debate on May 3rd, MSNBC ran a poll obtaining over 72,000 responses showing Ron Paul was the most convincing candidate, receiving 45% of the vote. His nearest competitor was Mitt Romney who received 18%. Fox news ran its own poll after the second debates on May 15, and with over 40,000 votes Ron Paul came in second with 25% of the vote. Watching Sean Hannity's face was priceless as while he was saying that Ron Paul's chances were over in this election, Fox's polling numbers flashed across the screen and had Ron Paul in the lead. He immediately did his best spin to claim the polls had been rigged. MSNBC also ran a poll about that debate and discovered Ron Paul was, again, the most convincing candidate with 64% of the over 25,000 responses. After the third debate on June 5, CNN's poll of over 25,000 respondents showed Ron Paul won with 60% of the vote.
So what gives? Why do these people go to the trouble of setting up their polls and then ignore the results? You and I both know that there is absolutely no possibility that they might be biased toward the candidates that they expect to and hope to win, right? Riiigghhhtt!! Why did they ignore their own poll results and report only on the candidates that THEY deemed to be the top 3 choices? In their astonishment at Dr. Paul’s success, they suggested that perhaps Ron Paul’s supporters were more Internet savvy and rabid, posting thousands of excess responses to the polls, effectively “Spamming” the polls. I guess put another way it could be said that Ron Paul’s supporters cared a lot more about their candidate than any of the other candidates’ supporters and were also smarter. After all, the other candidates’ supporters are also free to do that if Ron Paul’s can, right. But wait! Even the most rudimentary polling software allows IP address filtering, offering up a polite “sorry, you’ve already voted in this poll” message to anybody who tries to vote more than once. It is possible, of course, to use a proxy server to fool the filter, but how many people even know what that is, much less how to use one? We are, after all, talking about more than 70,000 responses here. And is there any doubt at all in anybody’s mind that if any one of their “expected” candidates had won the poll, that we would have heard about it loud and long, complete with interviews as if they had just won the Super Bowl? I mean, there must have been SOME reason that the poll existed in the first place, don’t you think?
Paul For Ron Paul-
Okay, everybody knows how an Internet poll works. You go there and click on the one you want to vote for, right? But how do they get the number from the polls that show Ron Paul languishing at 1% or 2%? Well, how DO they, anyway?
Well, the poll often cited, the Zogby poll, is a poll of some 500 interviews picked
randomly from a national telephone CD see here. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll
that had Ron Paul running at around 1% was a random national calling sample of some
1205 people. See here. These are the polls that they are citing to show his lack
of popularity and the popularity of their chosen candidates. So in this modern age
of cell phones and Internet connections they are, in their polling methods, ignoring
those who do not have land lines and those who respond to their OWN on-
* In early 1975, Jimmy Carter was polling at 1% (he went on to win the presidency).
* In early 1987, Michael Dukakis was polling at 1% (he went on to win the Democratic nomination).
* In early 1991, Bill Clinton was at 2% (he went on to win the presidency).
* In the spring of 1999, John McCain was polling at 3% (he went on to win the New Hampshire primary).
* In early 2003, Joe Lieberman was leading the field for the Democratic presidential nomination (he failed to win any primary).
So it might be a bit on the early side to be throwing in the towel, especially in view of his increasing popularity.
Here are the counts when compared head-
Straw polls, which are party fund raising polls where people have to actually pay money to place their vote, have traditionally been great barometers to gauge the support that candidates are getting in the early going before any actual primaries begin taking place. Interestingly, many straw poll results during THIS campaign seem to be taken down just as soon as the result is in. Ever wishing to be helpful, Ron Paul’s campaign site obligingly posts the results of each and every straw poll no matter how he does in them. Not really much risk in that, it seems.