As you may recall, about a week ago there was a CNBC hosted republican debate after which, like every other televised debate, there was an online poll on who the public believed the winner was.
A few moments after the poll went online, CNBC deleted the poll from their website and any trace of it. Why? Of the 7000 people who cast their ballots thus far, Ron Paul won 75 percent of the vote.
Ron Paul has been winning internet/Text messaging votes since the fox debate half a year ago. In case you have forgotten, here is Fox's attempt to downplay or explain away Paul's SMS poll win:
While Reuters places Paul at a meagre 3%, straw polls, online polls, political rallies and meetup groups would suggest that rather than the 2nd tier candidate which CNN or Fox News places him to be, Paul is a first tier candidate, and the only republican candidate whose support is mushrooming every week.
However, the television channels still pretend that this support does not exist and continue living in a Giuliani/Thompson/Romney world.
Here is CNBC's explaination on why it pulled the poll:
the fact that ron paul is remotely a second-tier candidate in online polls suggests to me the sheer stupidity of people on the internet rather than any particular sanity on his part. ron paul? might as well vote in ayn rand
god i hate libertarianism. i'd rather take four more years of bush over this lunatic
i mean, it's the digg crowd that's doing all this online ballot-box stuffing, you know that. i stopped reading digg after about the 475th article each day on "RON PAUL IS THE SAVIOR OF MANKIND"
one can interpret the results however they want but taking the poll down is just dumb. so let's say they let it stay up and he gets 75%. then you can discuss why that happened. maybe internet users like ron paul? maybe he's really that popular? maybe the page was hacked... they could discuss and let people draw their own conclusions. if he is polled at 3% elsewhere and 75% in this one, it should ring a bell. come on, people can think for themselves...
either way, taking it down prematurely is just childish.
Only decent thing about Ron Paul is some of his opinions about the Iraq war and US policies on Terrorism.. He seem pretty crazy when it comes to social issues, and his huge hard-on for following the constitution is a bit over the top..
On October 15 2007 23:04 GrandInquisitor wrote: the fact that ron paul is remotely a second-tier candidate in online polls suggests to me the sheer stupidity of people on the internet rather than any particular sanity on his part. ron paul? might as well vote in ayn rand
god i hate libertarianism. i'd rather take four more years of bush over this lunatic
i mean, it's the digg crowd that's doing all this online ballot-box stuffing, you know that. i stopped reading digg after about the 475th article each day on "RON PAUL IS THE SAVIOR OF MANKIND"
Good idea, since Bush has done incredibly well so far. Why change a winning team?
Honestly, I think Ron Paul would make a good president despite the fact that I disagree with him on many issues.
Let's face it, he's not going to be able to do away with medicare, social security, welfare, etc. What he will be able to do is to veto every piece of legislation with any pork attached to it, and conduct foreign policy with some sense.
Paul doesn't get enough credit for being very practical concerning his doing away with social programs. He realizes that people have become dependent so he would construct transitory periods weeding off people from the dependency. I really like his social security stance, which is to let young people get out of it.
I don't know the entire creed of the libertarian philosophy, but I share the same repulsion to central planning of monolithic governments. That is why we need a libertarian president and not some [strike]socialist[/strike] progressive president who wants to give every single person a 1,000 dollars to start a 401k or every baby 5,000 dollars for whatever they want when they hit adulthood.
Isn't that all that really needs to be said? When you actually poll people who are going to vote, it turns out that Ron Paul has no support. CNBC probably realizes that their poll is unscientific, but what they wanted out of their post debate poll was a representation of what debate viewers thought of what they saw. What happened was that Ron Paul's followers spammed the poll in order to get high vote numbers for the candidate they supported. CNBC decided that the poll was pointless (which it was) and took it down. Considering the backlash they're getting, it probably wasn't smart, but they made the same call I would have made.
I agree with a lot of what Ron Paul says. In my opinion most of the government shouldn't exist, and Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate that's 100% verifiably committed to that. But Ron Paul's views on the Gold Standard and the war on terrorism (a cliche term, but it suffices here) immediately make him a candidate I can't support.
I think it's cool that a candidate for limited government is getting the kind of support Ron Paul is, but most of his following is based off of the fact that he's against the Iraq war. If not for this, Ron Paul would be seen as just another small government lunatic.
On October 15 2007 23:26 Aepplet wrote: one can interpret the results however they want but taking the poll down is just dumb. so let's say they let it stay up and he gets 75%. then you can discuss why that happened. maybe internet users like ron paul? maybe he's really that popular? maybe the page was hacked... they could discuss and let people draw their own conclusions. if he is polled at 3% elsewhere and 75% in this one, it should ring a bell. come on, people can think for themselves...
either way, taking it down prematurely is just childish.
Um...no.
If the poll was hacked or manipulated, it would be "childish" to LEAVE IT UP. How well can people "draw their own conclusions" on false/insufficient information? What would be the point? The only thing it would do is mislead the people that don't realize the inaccuracy, and show the meaninglessness of online polling to the ones that do. What exactly does that accomplish? If they want a discussion about the problems surrounding online polls, they can post an article on that.
You sound like a Ron Paul fan wanting ANY ATTENTION you can get for him.