Matt Stoller, on Edwards’ departure from the race:

It’s entirely unclear who the Edwards voters are going to turn to, but we do know that Clinton picked up no activist support in the blogosphere. Obama has fully consolidated the netroots, from last month when there was a split with Edwards. I expect to see internal pressure from heavily creative class dominated institutions who emerged from 1998-2006 to move into Obama’s camp.

To paraphrase Dan Akroyd: Stoller, you ignorant slut. Or at least, you misreader of Internet polls. While dKos straw polls have consistently shown big leads for Edwards and Obama, with shifts to Dodd and Richardson, the full survey results of MoveOn.org — a measure the netroots once used to figure out what blog readers looked like — was always very different, showing stronger support for Clinton and Kucinich, but not Dodd and Richardson.

Stoller of all people should know, you can’t use a straw poll on one blog to claim the collective wisdom of the netroots. And it’s become all but tradition for the first comment on a Stoller post to call him out:

What does this mean?

“heavily creative class dominated institutions who emerged from 1998-2006 to move into Obama’s camp.

Sheesh, can you be more obtuse? Also, re-read your post. There was no split with Edwards, better re-write to be clear. That doesn’t mean Obama has “consolidated” the netroots at all. Let’s see what Edwards does re. an endorsement. Right now, he’s seeing how the two move forward on his issues. Clinton is better on health care than Obama, frankly.

This is hardly worth posting unless you are going to make a clear argument that we can discuss.

Epic fail.

Update: Yep. Hillary Clinton got nearly 30% support in MoveOn’s head-to-head poll, and just 11% from Daily Kos. They both favor Obama, but their memberships have different mindsets.

Wales was a good sport about the high-profile headaches Colbert has caused, specifically for the Wikipedians maintaining the Elephant and Reality entries (both of which are still semi-protected). He was so even as Colbert not-so-subtly encouraged readers to vandalize several new pages (Oxygen, Einstein; both protected) and the entire Spanish-language edition (you could say they’ve been put on notice).

Simultaneously overtly and covertly (the show is genius à la South Park) Colbert encouraged his Nation to visit the appropriate Wikipedia pages and assert that “Librarians are hiding something.” Of course, tonight of all nights, site administrators would be watching:

Mere seconds, of course. But this time, instead of just blanking and bolting, they’ve stuck around to argue in the Talk pages, (thanks to Not Paul Begala for pointing this out):

Wow: Going into a Wikipedia discussion page and chiding a Wikipedia editor for taking the site policies seriously is like, well, kind of like if Wales had started telling Colbert how to do his job.

Helgers7, a legitimate Wikipedian, is clearly right (as is Colbert) that one should be skeptical about the contents of any random Wikipedia entry. And yet amusing as the whole Colbert game may be, vandalizing the site doesn’t get that point across constructively — editing with integrity does. Helgen7 gets this; Sonic Hog (whom we’ll meet in a moment) is wasting his time.

Dedicated Wikipedia trolls are not that uncommon and, for good reason, Wikipedians try not to talk about them. In late 2006 administrators fought back an attempt to delete all entries related to blogs, LAist’s Tony Pierce in particular. But those vandals tend to be unregistered or IP abusers (i.e. sock puppets), whereas the aforementioned apprehended vandal/Sega aficionado Sonic Hog has actually been on the site since December 2005. Perhaps contsituting a new classification of Internet troll, Sonic Hog appears to be a resident troll of Wikipedia.

This readiness to engage in manipulative behavior online also reminds me more than a little of the Ron Paul Machine, that several thousand-strong cohort of libertarians, paleos, lefty trolls and Internet pranksters.

Surely Colbert still has the better-organized online army, and while he uses his basic cable pulpit knowingly, the Ronbots aren’t getting such explicit directions from the Paul campaign. They know to do what Colbert has to ask his fans to do: freep polls.

And what about the Wikipedia entry for Ron Paul? Since May 16, the discussion page runs to more than 24,000 words. I have to cut this off somewhere, and 24,000 is reason enough.

In conclusion, never underestimate the power of a small group of Internet users to change the results of any online power struggle. I think this was best summarized by one Digg user who has become something of a dedicated defender/reverse troll, frequently digging anti-Paul stories (including one Blog P.I. post). 1337 FTFA:

There’s something to be said about those groups who can keep a good humor about themselves while also understanding where to draw the line. In that spirit, let’s return to the Wikipedia discussion pages, where Blog P.I.’s favorite Colbertian gets pwned:

In sum, it’s worth reminding oneself what and what not to take seriously. That goes double for fans of Stephen Colbert and Ron Paul.

So while it’s nothing like guessing Time’s Person of the Year, my expectation has born out that, upon Ron Paul’s first inclusion in the GOP Bloggers Straw Poll, this would count as another online victory for the Ronbots:

Let us not take that poll result seriously. Rather, let us find out a bit about the people who produced that result.

Don’t forget, the GOP Bloggers poll includes a few useful crosstabs, and we horse-race journo junkies thrive on crosstabs. Most importantly, each poll participant is asked first to rate their favored candidate and then to record who else from the field would be acceptable nominees if their man fell short. Neither major party is about to go for Instant Runoff Voting, but the same concept shapes the invisible primary, and this poll gives insight into that thought process.

So let’s compare the Ron Paul Machine against the online proponents of Mitt Romney and John McCain, the two candidates racing to catch up with Giuliani, a feat Paul’s supporters contend is not an impossibility for their elderly Texas goldbug with an M.D. We will count supporters of Giuliani, F. Thompson and Gingrich as well, just because.

First up, acceptablity ratings for supporters of the candidate whose alleged “bots” are most often compared to Paul’s:

Romney’s supporters find Paul most unacceptable — putting them firmly in the mainstream camp — and however unenthusiastically, could accept F. Thompson and to a lesser degree, Huckabee (!) and Hunter (!!). With Giuliani and Gingrich it’s nearly even.

Next, the only other anti-anti-anti-torture Republican:

McCain supporters find Giuliani and F. Thompson acceptable. Paul is not the least-favored candidate; Tancredo and Gilmore are. Tancredo makes sense on the level of issues — they are surely on opposite sides of the current immigration debate. As for Gilmore, well, perhaps of those tagged “Rudy McRomney,” it’s the “Mc” fans who may have taken the greatest offense.

And here is Paul’s ostensible nemesis, the guy whose base yours all belongs to, whose moderate (and even libertarian) backers are probably in ur base killing your doodz right this very minute:

Giuliani supporters find the most candidates acceptable*, taking extreme exceptions only to Paul, T. Thompson and comparatively so to McCain, while ranking F. Thompson and Romney as highly acceptable. That Giuliani supporters are rating Paul lowest is rather dog-bites-man, but worth pointing out.

The man who isn’t (yet) there:

*Among delcared candidates, that is. Thompson supporters, so far, actually rate the most candidates acceptable: six vs. five. Only Paul and McCain earn their sincere disregard; T. Thompson, Gilmore and Brownback, as usual, can take a hike.

Now, let’s give Gingrich his due, because otherwise it would be Duncan Hunter, and even though Hunter is declared where Gingrich is not, Gingrich increasingly says he will announce (which would prove this prediction wrong) — and ultimately, Gingrich’s name ID with GOP primary voters would turn Romney green (let alone Duncan Hunter):

Gingrich supporters neatly line up with F. Thompson backers, both showing telltale signs of the “almost anyone else will do” sentiment, and approving of precisely the same candidates. Sounds to me like their supporters’ combined votes are a good representation of engaged but uncommitted online GOP Internet users.

Now, without the Beltway media and MSM churning, I wouldn’t have even included McCain: his fans number less than 100 (at the time of publication) out of nearly 11K recorded. While Paul, F. Thompson and Romney have appear to have formidable online bases, and Giuliani and Gingrich have their fans, the rest received too few votes to count in this post. Apologies again to Hunter and to Huckabee fans, who at least were not beaten by “(none).”

Still, the most interesting finding of all (besides FDT’s across-the-board acceptability) is this:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ron Paul supporters like nobody less than Giuliani — for whom most observers called that debate based on his response to Paul’s “blowback” comments, even as the Ronbots contended that the very same exchange proved Ron Paul the obvious winner.

Unlike supporters of the realistic (and popular, arguably faddish and maybe unrealistic) candidates, Ron Paul supporters apparently would not vote for any other GOP candidate in the Republican primary — though intriguingly, a minority would consider Tancredo.

I submit this as fair evidence that Ron Paul’s online base of support is not drawn from actual Republican party primary voters. Activists for every other candidate have their fallbacks, nemeses and frenemies, but no other group is so far outside the mainstream as the activists for Ron Paul.

Maybe Ron Paul is the GOP vanguard. More likely, his support measures something besides the current Republican mood.

So where are they meeting to plan their onslaught? A few days back, one frustrated Digg user identified ten such sites, noting that Paul’s Diggers were organizing in such a way that violates Digg’s Terms of Service (thereby qualifying Paul’s support as “manufactured,” not that I expect it to forestall complaints in the comment section).

One site he didn’t count was the Congressman Ron Paul for President 2008 group at Facebook, but it too qualifies as the planning site for yet another [potenti] TOS violation. Specifically, the Wall — a constantly updated comment stream — for this group is a veritable assembly line of votes for online polls testing the Republican field.

And of course their latest obsession is the aforementioned GOP Bloggers poll. I would say don’t miss this comment, but alas, it’s since been deleted:

To be fair, two subsequent Facebookers recoiled in horror, (correctly) concerned that someone such as yours truly would find it, and the commenter agreed to remove it (note: this is from the archive, hence the wideness):

Telling that this Paul supporter’s first instinct was to suspect that the poll was rigged, isn’t it?

In any case, I’m sure this won’t result in too much bad press. Not this instance, at any rate. But this is just one Ron Paul forum, and one that merely requires Facebook membership to view. And even here, Paul’s supporters are well aware that poll hosts will view their organized effort as illegitimate:

What’s sad about this is a) Paul’s supporters are not going out and trying to convert more supporters through reason and debate, and b) they have no sense of humor. First they try to overwhelm others’ communities, and retaliate with subsequent e-mail swarms when their man gets knocked.

So far at least, it’s a hollow movement. The Paul Machine certainly compares unfavorably with, say, the Deaniacs of 2003. They got organized to blog and MeetUp and demonstrate, rather than merely agitate. Ron Paul does have honest supporters at Reason’s Hit and Run and a few other libertarian blogs, but his movement fares badly in comparison with Mitt Romney’s online volunteers as well. Sure, the so-called Romneybots can be annoying at times, but at least they’re reaching out to other conservative constituencies and trying to engage the uncommitted. Not to mention, I’m sure their ranks are filled out by, you know, actual Republicans.

Meanwhile, the assembly line rolls on, only slightly less amusing than Lucy and Ethel’s:

A lot has changed, indeed. For instance, he has now sailed past Romney and is within 900 votes of Fred Thompson. Truly, it will be a stunning victory. But history will probably mark this as the biggest contest Ron Paul won in the 2008 race.

P.S. This poll, however, will likely go down as Paul’s most unanimous victory.

In recent polls, Gingrich and Giuliani duked it out for the lead for a few months, only to be decisively overtaken once Fred Thompson was added to the mix. Now for the first time, Ron Paul is being tested against the field. Gee, what do you think will happen?

Here’s what the top tier looked like early this afternoon, after the first thousand or so votes (when I was still on my PC at work):

And here’s what it looks like this evening, about 9 hours later (from my temporary iBook):

The Ron Paul online effort may be effective, but it does take them a few hours to get organized. And they still face an uphill fight against Fred Thompson’s (presumably more organic) fanbase. But organized they are, so don’t count them out yet.

For my next post: the Ron Paul Machine at work.

Straw polls can also be a good measure of organization and activist support — look at how Romney and McCain are constantly trying to outdo each other.

But what I don’t like is that the online straw polls on the progressive/netroots sites always come as a surprise.

I wonder if Kos announced that he was going to do a straw poll in a week, would any of the presidential candidates whip for it? Send out a blast to their lists? Might that also increase the number of participants?

The ultimate community blog, with 120,000 registered users and nearly a dozen regular front-page writers. It produces over 500,000 new words of content every day, on virtually every topic in politics, and has attracted writing from virtually the entire Democratic leadership.

Yesterday’s dKos straw poll has me wondering: After 24 hours, why are there only about 25K votes overall? Wouldn’t you expect that number to be higher?

The percentage of registered voters who actually vote in national elections is somewhere around 60-70%. Granted, voting is only one of many activities occuring at dKos, but it still bears asking: why does a community of political activists with a half million visitors and 100K+ registered users not vote in higher numbers in these things? Anyone?