What this says is that apparently anyone who isn't a Ron Paul supporter is busy trying to locate his dupa with both hands...
I hope you don't really believe that. I'm not sure if you do. Obviously, fans of the other candidates could do it if they cared to. So why didn't they? Why should they? Obviously, it is only the Ron Paul crowd that puts that kind of importance on internet polls.
I don't think any side is doing it--or more precisely, I don't think any side is doing it more often than any other. I'm offering a reductio ad absurdam demonstrating that it's impossible to believe that Ron Paul's supporters are "gaming the internet" without believing either (1) that Ron Paul's supporters are orders of magnitude more skilled than anyone else's supporters, or (2) that everyone else's supporters are orders of magnitude more "honest" than Ron Paul's.
I've helped freep enough polls on behalf of Bush in 1999-2000 to know that every candidates supporters engage in such practices; so option #2 is untenable. You're left either with option #1, which is equally ridiculous, or else you must reject the initial assumption that Ron Paul's supporters are (disproportionately) "spamming." While I'd find option #1 flattering, I don't find it credible; therefore, there must be more Ron Paul supporters than you thought. QED.
Maybe I'm missing something because I'm not a geek, but I assumed the "flooding" was due to the Paulistas spreading the word about this poll over the internet, rather than from dishonesty. Like gun nuts always do with gun-related issues.
Yup, there's no question that Ron Paul's supporters respond to "go hit this poll!" messages. As do Billary supporters on DU and Rudy McRomney supporters on FreeRepublic. The net effect should therefore be roughly proportional to the candidates' support from Internet users, even if the numbers are inflated for every candidate. The Internet conspiracy theory says that Freepers and DUmmies
never gang up on polls, while Paulistas spend all their time doing nothing else.
--Len.