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So how are these Republican gatherings any different in numbers?

I know, it would seem that the MSM poll would be from thousands, I thought so too…but not so.

And Westmiller you are right…at Hillsborough, there was no poll but the overwhelming majority of the 500 there were for Ron…the others in the old guard feel he’s too ‘right wing’ which makes me laugh because some neocons accuse him of being a lefty!

So which is it? Devil or angel?

Great birthday party today — Ron is an angel…

This website’s recent willingness to dismiss Ron Paul successess is starting to border on pathological and – at least in this reader’s mind – is beginning to cast some doubts as to the political allegiance of this website’s authors and thus their understanding and willingness to see a true constitutionalist in the Oval Office.

Of course I could be wrong about this, but that knowledge alone is not enough to quell suspicions of bias…even on a website supposedly promoting real patriotism and constitutionalism. If you are truly what you claim to be and are merely promoting caution, I suggest being very careful and aware that the effect you might be having on those people who would otherwise travel great distances to show support for this man. On the other hand, if you are running interference and trying to disrupt and stymie Ron Paul support, I’d say “nice try”, but would remind you that you will NOT be successful in your apparent goal.

A reminder to Ron Paul supporters out there: take heart, vote in the primaries in your state, take all your friends and family with you, and together we CAN make a change, despite what the naysayers might think. And then, if by some miracle, someone other than Dr. Paul pulls out the GOP nomination – AKA some criminal piece of $hit – we’ll flood Dr. Paul with pleas to run on a third party ticket and turn this whole damned election on its head by stealing votes from both sides of the Republi-crat machine.

The time is real…the time is now…
Viva la revolution!

Aren’t we forgetting something? Come Primary Election Day, who will be the people voting at the polls? The people who choose to vote!

The real election won’t be a RANDOM SAMPLE at all!

As stated by some other comments, the scientific polls attempt to pin down “likely Republican primary voters.” I’ve read that a typical requirement would be a voter who participated in the last Republican presidential primary. This is completely logical and would seem a proper approach. Each election, only a small percentage will be “new” voters. Assuming a cyle purely based on old voters dying and new voters coming of age, you’d expect less than 10% to be new.

Considering that, as long as that new population is relatively similar in behavior to the old, then they can be ignored completely w/o effecting the poll very much.

What would throw this whole system for a loop is if a candidate attracted significant levels of support from folks outside that “likely Republican” group. Paul is certainly doing this, but we might ask ourselves, how much?

Well, here is a completely unscientific, self-selected group of Paul supporters with their political affiliation broken down.
http://rally.ronpaulplanet.org/stats.php

It’s a sample (again, self-selected) of about 2000 of Paul’s grass roots volunteers – You’ll find approx 25% identify themselves as Republican, a little over 30% as independent, about 20% as Libertarian, and the rest Democrat, and Constitution Party members (and even a few Greens).

Now, knowing the above is not scientific, that 25% (Republican) number seems reasonable at this point in time. If that’s the case and the polling companies do filter for previous republican primary voters, then it would seem that Paul’s actual support may be about 4x the polls.

Based on that logic, his support could easily be 4x what the polls are reporting.

If you look at the final tally for any election you’ve ever voted in, and just mentally move your vote to the other column, did it ever make the difference in the election? One vote never does. Add to that the fact that even in the general election almost half of the votes cast go to the losing side. Are they just “throwing their votes away”?

In reality the election is an opinion poll, asking the electorate, as individuals, whom they most favor for office. Why in the world would someone want to claim an opinion they didn’t actually have, in a secret ballot mind you, all in the name of voting for a winner?

It makes no sense. I want to voice my opinion, and I’m going to just for the sake of doing it. And I’m voting for Ron Paul, whether I think he’s going to win, or not.

DM would make a really good chicom propagandist

This is the most important thing to remember…

If dedicated and enthusiastic supporters from a candidate will show up for a straw poll they will most likely vote in the primary.

Make sure you are registered so that you can vote in your state’s primary. I had to switch from independant so i could vote for Ron Paul.

I say, it is okay to be a republican if you are voting for Ron Paul!
Brett from Phoenix, AZ

I would just as soon not have all the other candidates drop out. Dr. Paul needs quite a few candidates in the race to have a chance in the republican primary. He needs the republican establishment/pro-war vote spread out among a number of republican candidates to have a chance. I would like to see five or six other candidates still in the race during primary season.

What I see possibly happening is Dr. paul getting 20-35% of the vote, possibly enough to have the highest %, but then with lower candidates dropping out their votes would go to a different candidate, but not Ron Paul. The establishment would push enough candidates out of the race (with whatever means possible) so as to ensure that Ron Paul would not win. That is my biggest concern. With a populated field of candidates he has a rather good chance. With only a couple of other candidates his chances go down significantly.

The total votes for these two straw polls comes to about 600. Does that number sound familiar? That’s how many people where polled by phone in the Rasmussen Reports sample, a poll which you and so many other sources have cited as proving that Ron Paul doesn’t stand a chance. So explain this: Why is it that when Ron Paul only gets 1% of 600 votes, you claim on your site that he is doomed, but when he gets 80% of 600 votes, you say that it is not really that big of a deal?

Because there’s a difference between the opinion of a randomly selected sample of the voting population and the opinion of people who are motivated enough to spend a Saturday 6 months or more before the first primary worrying about politics.

Yes, the people who came out and supported Ron Paul deserve credit. And the campaign deserves credit for a credible grassroots effort, but there’s no way that this can be taken as a sign of how things will go when the primaries start.

Like I said in the post, there may be something happening, but the evidence for it just isn’t there yet.

The total votes for these two straw polls comes to about 600. Does that number sound familiar? That’s how many people where polled by phone in the Rasmussen Reports sample, a poll which you and so many other sources have cited as proving that Ron Paul doesn’t stand a chance. So explain this: Why is it that when Ron Paul only gets 1% of 600 votes, you claim on your site that he is doomed, but when he gets 80% of 600 votes, you say that it is not really that big of a deal?

How can you claim that “the evidence isn’t there yet” for a successful Paul campaign when hundreds of people showed up to give the man a landslide victory? How are these two real-world, physical events not more evidence of success than a random telephone poll of people who didn’t even have to get up off of their couches?

Huh?