PajamasMedia moves to remove Ron Paul from their online straw poll
Pajamas Media editors decided to remove the second-tier presidential candidates from their online straw poll due to vote-swarming by visitors for second-tier candidates, or so they say.
On the 2007-09-16 poll results and before, the online straw poll showed Ron Paul leading the Republican candidates and Dennis Kucinich leading the Democrats.
Then they allegedly received complaints from readers about vote-stuffing by second-tier candidates, thereby diluting the poll results. So based on their reasoning that the presidential campaign is narrowing its focus on front-running candidates, they made the decision to remove all second-tier candidate from both party lists.
As you can see, we see the front-runners as listed by Pajamas Media. They are now relying on Real Clear Politics data on which candidates they should focus on.
As a result, the number of people casting votes on their straw poll have dropped considerably.
Remember during the Fox News debate last month where they set up a text page poll so that one vote per cell phone could be tallied, and yet even though Ron Paul got the most votes, Sean Hannity accused his viewers of cheating.
Check out Ron Paul's straw poll results
Comments
Posted by: badmedia
Posted on: October 2, 2007 04:29 PM
It's not the first time they've done it. Before they used this excuse of he wasn't polling high enough in the media polls, then he meet that standard, and now shortly after they have changed the standards to exclude him(again).
Posted by: blueridge
Posted on: October 3, 2007 09:47 PM
So in their infinite wisdom, they are comfortable that Bill Richardson's and Huckabees polling, respectively, is accurate, and not "slamming"? Personally I think this is more apt to be a true reflection of how the "establishment" republicans and democrats are disliked on BOTH sides, who must be propped up by Big Media for their support (name recognition alone), and is also evidence that the average voter who answers phone polls (in their very small samples) has a demographic bias toward "boob-tubers" who watch network news, then sports and entertainment, and listen to talk radio, BUT ARE POLITICALLY ILLITERATE, AND DO NOT READ LIKE INTERNET POLLEES.
Thus we see that the polls mean VERY LITTLE because they both slant toward particular demographics; and internet readers are opinion leaders, who are more serious minded than superficial boob-tubers who are more interested in Britney Spears or American Idol than in the constitution or just government.
A public that is easily misled will never be free from tyranny. Voting is dangerous with an ignorant public. Ron Paul is giving previous abstaining voters a reason to show up, but it all depends on the primaries.