Ron Paul Excluded from New Hampshire candidates Forum:
Given that he's polling in New Hampshire better than Thompson, almost as well as Giuliani, and not far from Huckabee, all of who were invited, this is very strange. Paul supporters may be paranoid, but, as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that no one's out to get you.
With regard to FOX News, they were outed by Judith Regan as being a tool for the Giuliani campaign.
"[A] senior executive in the News Corp. organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani's presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik. ... [D]efendants knew they would be protecting Giuliani if they could preemptively discredit her."
It isn't strange that Paul is being excluded. It's entirely consistent with the way things have been from the beginning.
The debate should be limited to candidates that actually have a chance of winning the nomination. Paul has proven over the last few months that he has zero chance at winning the nomination. And the national polls bear that out.
So I trust you're writing Fox to demand that Thompson and McCain be excluded too, right? National polling shows they're both roadkill.
You may want to have a look at this AOL Straw Poll where now close to 500,000 votes have been cast. Please don't give me any of that nonsense about Paulbot spammers. AOL's claim that the poll has been tamper proofed is borne out by the spread between DEM and GOP votes, which is less than 5%.
Whether or not the poll is tamperproof, the fact that the sample is self selected (as opposed to random or stratified random) blows away any pretension to actual statistical accuracy. If you look at the results of polls that actually have a statistically valid sampling strategy, Ron Paul is generally somewhere in the single digits nationally.
Not really. Take a look at Pollster, and note that 5 candidates are polling nationally in double digits. McCain, in particular, has been resurgent of late, with the futures numbers putting him in a close 3rd. By any measure, McCain should certainly be in this one. Ron Paul, who's polling at around 4%, shouldn't be. Thompson will really depend on how he does in Iowa; if he gets fewer votes than McCain, he's done.
Exactly. Moreover, they all at some point during the campaign have been above 15%. So those 5 candidates are all legitimate (i.e., have a chance to actually win). Ron Paul has never been above 5% support - the only conclusion to be drawn is that he is merely a fringe candidate.
I support wide debates early in the campaign, to give people a chance to become legitimate candidates. But Paul has proven that he is not a legitimate candidate. We are now very close to the time to vote, so the media (including media-driven debates) should focus on the legitimate candidates.
BTW, I support the same on the Democratic side - fringe candidates like Biden, Richardson, and Dodd should be excluded from Democratic debates.
I actually did look at Pollster (via Slate's polling page) before I posted. McCain's "surge" is pure dead cat bounce. He'll finish at best third, possibly fourth in Iowa, no better than second in New Hampshire (where he still trails Romney by 10 points even with the MSM's "McCain's back!!!1!!11!1!1oneone!11!1"
free advertisingstories), and then a fourth place finish in South Carolina unless he's lucky enough for Thompson to have dropped out by then. New Hampshire appears to be the only state where McCain is polling better than third and in most states he is polling fourth. Given that the man has near-100% name recognition and every likely Republican primary voter is familiar with his platform by this point, the fact that he can barely crack 10% in most states indicates that he's past his sell-by date. McCain's only chance of winning would be for Giuliani to drop out after Iowa, which would could possibly let McCain win New Hampshire (depending on how much Romney drops there after predictably finishing second in Iowa), finish second in South Carolina, and then win Florida. However, since there's precisely zero chance Giuliani will drop out before "Tsunami Tuesday," that means McCain is already done.I guess the self-selected New Hampshire primary is not statistically accurate either.
This is yet another instance of the media trying to make the news instead of reporting it.
are you quoting from a stone tablet containing irrefutable truth, or a paragraph from the initial complaint in someone's lawsuit? Please share your source.
The continued inability of the mainstream media to grasp (or at least to sincerely report) the humongous excesses of our federal government, foreign policy blunders (entanglements in direct contravention of the founders' warnings, anyone?), and consistent and documented corruption at the highest levels in Washington really makes one wonder about the insidious relationship between the media, multi-national corporations, and our federal government.
Whatever happened to reporting the political news and not actually dictating it, instead?
I strongly speculate Ron Paul’s support is far greater across the country than people realize. Consider that the mainstream political polls (from Zogby, Rasmussen, etc.) propagated by the mainstream media (often without a disclaimer about the nature and number of those voters solicited) and used as the rationale for why ‘Ron Paul has no chance’ often consist of only hundreds, or at most a thousand, individual polled voters. Those solicited voters are typically party affiliated ones who have voted in a recent election and who have landline phones. These polls are very out of touch in the methods they use to reach prospective voters and how those voters are chosen.
At the same time, the mainstream media has been undeniably guilty of removing online, cellphone-based, and other polls which often consist of many thousands, or even tens of thousands of likely voters once Ron Paul has taken an overwhelming lead.
Consider further that the amount of ‘free’ attention and publicity garnered by Ron Paul absolutely pales when compared to the other top GOP candidates since the mainstream media virtually refuses to cover him and his message (so much for a free and open press dedicated to reporting the news of politics instead of actually dictating it). This in spite of the fact that Paul’s fundraising numbers, and in particular the huge number of average Americans who continue to donate to his campaign, inextricably prove that he has a tremendous amount of support from the public.
To those (like A.S.) who argue that it is defensible for the mainstream media to marginalize Ron Paul at this stage (which they have clearly done, despite his demonstrable public support), I challenge you to list the polls you are referring to - whether reported by Zogby, Rasmussen, or whoever - when you write about how Paul clearly doesn't matter. And when you reference these polls please be certain to list the objective scientific criteria used by said polls. If you are an unthinking individual who is impressionable enough to look at a mere percentage figure promulgated by those who are obviously opposed to the message of Ron Paul, without actually analyzing how many people and which people were polled before the final result was extrapolated to the ridiculous meaning that the media and you (of A.S.'s ilk) claim whereby Paul deserves marginalization, then I can only wish you good luck in reclaiming some power of independent thought (along with some backbone). Step up, if you accept the challenge, by putting your money where your mouth is (just as so many tens - even hundreds - of thousands of Americans have by donating to the Ron Paul Presidential campaign).
Wait until the New Hampshire Primary just around the corner. It will be interesting to see what the base of power in Washington does once they recognize how truly powerful Paul’s anti-big-and-corrupt-government message has become with the average mainstream American.
It’s time for a political revolution in this country, and it may well happen despite the best attempts of the mainstream media and Washington power brokers to stop it…
I'm also a little disappointed that a candidate can be "done" before the first vote is cast.
If you want to use the AOL straw poll to draw conclusions about the group of people who choose to vote in the AOL straw poll, that will work perfectly fine. If you want to use a poll to draw conclusions about how some larger group (likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, or all eligible voters nationwide, for instance) feel about the candidates, then you can't use a self selected sample and expect to get good statistical results.
Wouldn't it be better to say that its a New Hampshire forum, bfore the New Hampshire primary, and the criteria to be used should be up to people in New Hampshire?
And RP should turn them down.
It ain't a debate if both sides aren't present.
You have the 5 stooges, and then you have RP.
I don't need to hear Rudy giggle, and Uncle Huck sling the cross in the china shop, just cuz we broke it, don't mean we own it.
Retardlicans, can't live with em, can't live with em dead.
It shows the intellectual maturity of a third-grader when Ron Paul supporters need to resort to ridiculous names, and is further proof that his supporters are nutcases. I can't wait for Iowa so that he'll finally just go away.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/15/regan/
Yes, short of George Washington or James Madison coming back to life, Ron Paul is the best we can do.
Having said this, and being cognizant of the obvious differences between the straw poll results and AOL poll results on the one hand, and the official polls on the other, there is no legitimate reason for the competing Zogby, Rasmussen, etc. polls to try and get things wrong. I have seen lots of libertarian and other candidates over the years saying the polls would be proved wrong. They are never proven wrong. I agree that Paul will get far more votes in NH than any previous libertarian candidate, and likely higher totals than Thompson, but it would be a mistake to be overly enthusiastic. He won't make the overly optimistic totals his supporters hope and expect of him.
Good stuff.
I'm a somewhat reluctant Ron Paul supporter. And you are correct, I'm a total nutcase. Of course, by today's standards the Founding Fathers would be considered complete freaking loons. So there's that.
I'm laughing at all the whining from the Ron Paul haters about "name calling." PLEASE!
The most hateful and vicious attacks I have seen have been from the haters who can't seem to mention Ron Paul without adding words like "loon" or "crazy" or some such. Don't like it getting tossed back in your face? Tough. Choke on it.
You would think the Republican party would like a candidate that inspires the level of passion that Ron Paul supporters bring to the subject.
Honestly, there are two choices for President: Ron Paul and everyone else. All other candidates, of EITHER party, are just minor variations on the neo-con-socicialist theme.
Ken
www.LaserGuidedLoogie.com
What explains Ron Paul's appeal to the left? Sure, he's anti-war, but so are all the Democrats. The rest of Paul's positions are right-libertarian if not conservative.
So what's the appeal? I'd love for someone who identifies himself as a leftist to explain this to me. Ron Paul will get us out of Iraq, but he's not going to be helpful to the left on national healthcare, abortion, taxes, social security, etc.
I would have thought that "Paul-troon" would have been a gimme...much better than "Paul-tard".
On a more serious note: I know that we are all very serious and well-informed people here at the VC and would never contemplate voting for someone based on something so shallow as his looks.
But realistically, can anyone really imagine, 50 years into the age of television, the electorate choosing THAT guy as President? Talk about polls and conspiracies all you like. All we know about someone running for President is what he says and what he looks like. Paul's visual presentation and delivery are awful.
I encourage everyone who wishes to turn our country around to vote for Ron Paul.
He's keeping some scurvy company.
As a moderate leftist (pro- New Deal, high marginal income tax rates, universal health care, etc.), Ron Paul is less appealing to me than even most of the Republican alternatives. But I think the answer to your question lies in my definition of "moderate" and "extreme," terms I apply more to personality than politics. My political views are nowhere near the center, but I call myself moderate because I expect people with whom I disagree to be just as likely sincere and trustworthy as those whose politics or ideology I share. I identify the extremists on each side as much by their personal distrust and animosity toward certain groups and individuals they consider their enemies as by their ideology.
As for Ron Paul’s following, I see it coming from three categories of voter: (1) rational ideological libertarians (mostly Republican); (2) extreme right-wing Republicans (e.g., Stormfront); and (3) extreme left-wing Democrats (911 Truthers). The latter two groups are characterized by their deep personal, often paranoid distrust and animosity toward those they identify with corrupt, conspiratorial control of power, including virtually all federal government. These views find fertile ground in Ron Paul's small government iconoclasm, and are probably more compelling to these fringe groups than the positive aspects of their opposing ideologies. For these two categories of voter, Ron Paul is like the seem that runs down the back of my shoe -- he's where extreme left-wingtip and extreme right-wingtip meet.
Well, when it's raised from tens of thousands of individual donors around the country, it's a much better method than using polls of a few hundred people.
It depends what you're trying to measure. If you're trying to measure which candidate has the largest number of very dedicated supporters (i.e. those who are dedicated enough to give money), then the number of individual donors is quite a good proxy.
However, if you're trying to measure how much support a candidate is likely to get in an election, there's not necessarily a strong correlation. On election day, the candidate with support a mile wide and an inch deep is going to outdo the one with a smaller number of more dedicated (fanatical?) supporters.
Pollsters take polls of 'likely' voters. They get the names of those voters from the list of local registered republicans and democrats. The majority of Ron Paul supporters aren't on that list because they're fed up with politics as usual.
I'm almost 50 years old and I'll be attending my first ever caucus this year because Mr. Paul's message is so blatantly different from everyone else's. He's waking up sleeping masses of disenfranchised people and energizing them.
He listed 130,000 donors last quarter, 107,000 had never given before. This is historic.
No, I don't believe candidates should be invited to debates based on campaign contributions, it should be due to popularity. But if the polls are biased when someone rakes in four times as much cash as the Iowa front runner that should also be counted as a measure of popularity.
Having FOX deliberately exclude a candidate with his message and his potential is the reason America ends up getting to choose between the lesser of two evils every four years.
Actually, I think the fact that Huckabee is doing so well despite raising so little money is more of an argument against using cash as a measure of popularity. More likely, however, is that the cash disparity is at least partly a function of the reporting period. The fundraising reports cover the last three months of the year, but Huckabee's front runner status really only occurred in the last month. My guess is that he's raised less money during that period than quite a few folks who are doing worse than him in the polls, not just Paul. However, if we were able to look at data just for the month of December, his fundraising would be more in line with his newfound front-runner status (as it looks like he could win, a lot of people probably started stuffing his pockets).
Hooray for America!
(my emphasis)
. . . but we're begging the question again, aren't we?
Regardless, we have a new organization chartered to operate in the public interest. How is it in the public interest to invite only 5 of 7 republican candidates to a debate right before primary elections based on such subjective criteria?
It shouldn't be tolerated, much less supported or encouraged.