Does Pajamas Media Have It In For Ron Paul ?
Vox Day accuses Pajamas Media of taking Ron Paul’s name out of their online Presidential Straw Poll because he was consistently beating all the other candidates and that wasn’t too the liking of PM’s conservative owners:
[T]he truth is that there are alternatives, genuine alternatives to the three-part multiple choice quiz, but the mainstream media is, as always, doing its best to prevent anyone from considering them. And in their best freshmen-at-the-frat-house fashion, Pajamas Media is playing precisely the same game, as evidenced by their 2008 Pajamas Media Presidential Straw Poll.
PAJAMAS MEDIA PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL has officially begun. Bill Richardson and Rudy Giuliani were again winners in the seventh week with over 70,000 votes now cast. Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich (undeclared) were runners-up on the Democratic and Republican sides respectively. What the headline fails to mention is that in the Feb. 19 Pajamas Media poll, Ron Paul, the Texas congressman and now a declared candidate for the Republican nomination, roundly defeated Rudy Giuliani, 43.1 percent to 20.1 percent. Moreover, he did so by winning more votes, 1,769, than Giuliani subsequently did in winning the Mar. 4 (1,431) and Mar. 11 polls (1,158).
The innocent observer might wonder how Ron Paul could slip so much in three weeks that Giuliani could surpass him with fewer votes, or that a disgraced adulterer and non-candidate for president like Newt Gingrich could claim second place. Did his actual declaration of his candidacy on Mar. 11somehow inspire a backlash against him? No, the truth is much more simple.
Because they didn’t like the results, Pajamas Media simply dropped Ron Paul from the poll, while retaining the likes of George Pataki, Tommy Thompson and other no-hopers who aren’t even running for president!
A few points.
First of all, it’s their poll and they can include or exclude anyone they want. Libertarians above all others should recognize that.If they want to exclude a declared candidate because they don’t like his message and include people who aren’t even running for President, they can do that too. However, it does call into question the accuracy of the poll.
And that leads to the second point. This is an online poll we’re talking about. All of the participants are self-selected and it’s easy to game the system which, incidently, is what may have actually been going on here. There is no scientific value in the poll itself. Why get yourself worked up over something like this ?
I just don’t get it.
H/T: Lew Rockwell
