In yesterday’s installment, I demonstrated how it took Ron Paul’s supporters a few hours to start making an impact on the May GOP Bloggers straw poll — fair evidence, I think, that his supporters are not quite as legion, or representative, as they’d have everyone (not least themselves) believe.
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.
Since you have to work to find this, I assume such abuse is rare. If it is rare, why attribute it to all Ron Paul supporters. It is clearly a small minority.
I think you make too big of a deal about this. They are only online polls.
Gee, I voted for Paul in the GOPbloggers poll after reading your story ~ I also digg up stories I like on him, but I don’t have anyone giving me marching orders. I think you have Paul supporters confused with Romney and the other “top tier” guys ~ they’re the ones marching in lockstep. And their supporters the ones being referred from candidate friendly websites ~ according to the “filters” on the poll you’re citing for evidence.
Is it so hard to believe that folks like Paul’s message? It’s like a breath of fresh air coming from that cesspool DC. For the record I also like Tancredo and Hunter, but the rest of the Republican field couldn’t pull a conservative value out of their ass with two hands and a flashlight.
Dar & Michael: I do believe my post anticipated your criticisms. Respond with specifics, please.
I’m not buying it. Yes, I’m a Ron Paul supporter, duh!
Campaigns are organized and people are encouraged to make a showing, I don’t doubt that.
But, finding a few incidents of people supposedly priming the pump does not a conspiracy make.
It’s the goddamn internet, you can find an example of absolutely anything!
I recently registered at Digg.com, and I look for Ron Paul articles and I Digg post them if they haven’t been posted, if they are already posted I Digg them and usually make a comment.
I don’t lose any sleep over this at all.
I guess those text message votes from the Fox News Debate Poll were rigged by a few kids from Facebook too. Those blasted kids. And another thing that’s interesting is that his popularity didn’t really rise online until videos of those debates started making their way on to YouTube and spreading throughout the blogosphere. Those snotty kids must’ve been supporters of Ron Paul way before it was cool and hip in order to be ready to rig that text message poll as soon as the Debate was over. They’re good. Damn good.
I don’t understand why you spent the time on this post. You should probably go do some research on the candidates instead of taking the 5 people who do this, and target them. Good job.
I try to engage people in intellectual discussions about Ron Paul’s economic positions whenever I can. I am just me, with no organization. Nobody wants to intellectualize about politics, they want to grandstand and speak mostly nonsense. Ron Paul has the most intellectually principled stand of any candidate, and that appeals to some of the electorate. Perhaps these are the same people who are fed up with the anti-intellectualism of the past 16 years?
Specfics?
You wrote “a) Ron Paul supporters are”. That should be “a) Some Ron Paul supporters are”.
You mentioned Reason Hit and Run, yet there are hundreds of blogs and thousands of commenters discussing issues related to Ron Paul running.
You are taking the comments (and perhaps actions) of a few and attributing it to the whole.
Perhaps you see these as simply examples of something much bigger.
See also:
Ron Paul assigns Giuliani homework – CNN
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/ron-paul-assigns-giuliani-homework-cnn.html
Major Political Site TechPresident Article: The Rise of Ron Paul
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/major-political-site-techpresident-rise.html
NPR – Dark Horse Paul Runs Well on the Web
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/npr-dark-horse-paul-runs-well-on-web.html
Ron Paul Web Traffic Surging Again!, Increases Web Traffic Lead on Obama, Etc.
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/ron-paul-web-traffic-surging-again.html
By Rep. Ron Paul – On Patriotism – May 24, 2007
http://hammer2006.blogspot.com/2007/05/by-rep_24.html
The bizarre thing for me is that the Paul supporters have tricked some smart people into thinking this is a genuine grassroots movement (comparing him to Dean). But what we’ve really got is astroturf on a really large scale.
@Todd
Good call. Even grassroots activists can act like astroturfing shills.
Why anyone even mentions these online polls is beyond me. What is the purpose of a completely unscientific poll? To draw traffic? Let the Paulies have their day, his fifteen minutes are nearly up.
I just don’t understand why you guys are so thin skinned, and have technorati, icerocket, google news searches running constantly to protest when someone writes something you don’t like.
The Honorable Ron Paul simply attracts the attention of people who would like a President that will help to restore our Constitutional Republic and he seems the only one running that is qualified for that position. The support he has gained is mostly unorganized and very much grassroots. Mostly people who have not seen a candidate that knows how to tell the truth and stick to his principles.
It is inspiring.
So why aren’t supporters of other candidate doing the same?
Just admit it. People actually want a candidate that represents everyday people, not corporations. Republicans are supposed to be for small government. How can they be for small government if they want a national ID card? How can a republican be for small government if they want to spend tax payer money on agencies such as the DEA to enforce a federal law against marijuana? If we’re as desperate as you make it sound on this blog to give Ron Paul publicity, you should ask yourself why. Jee, could it be because we want the government (especially the federal government) out of our lives? If the rest of the republicans would leave people alone that don’t hurt anybody, we wouldn’t be so worried about getting a particular candidate elected.
I fave no problem with Ron Paul and his Constitutional support except in one area, national defense. May I remind his supportrs that Jefferson sent our young Navy and Marines to Tripoli to fight the very same enemy we fight today, radical Islam. He is wrong about the Battle for Iraq and the Greater War in general. This is WW IV either fight and win or submit to Islamic dhimmitude, slavery or death. A major issue to get so seriously wrong. Poll spamming is so easy to spot its funny, Charles at LGF has tracked it for years.
Riiiiight, because we don’t deserved to be attacked by radical islam…wait yes we do. If Iran came over and took down our nation and rebuilt it with a shah we would be organizing against them as well. Radical Christians…that has a nice ring to it. If they had been constantly bombing and overriding our national policies and policing us for the past 50 years we would be doing the same thing.
It is not hard to see that our foreign policy is taking a toll on the nations wealth/health. I take that back, it has already taken a toll and now a majority of the nation is steadily declining into poverty. 100 years ago the average three person family could build a 2500ft^2 home on thier 10 acre’s and live prosperous. Today the entire nation is in debt, everyone rents and steadily builds up more and more debt.
The personal income tax is unconstitutional. It is sad that it has taken it this long for someone to have the BALLS to stand in front of congress and say that. This man is fighting for the people and laying himself on the line for us by speaking the TRUTH. You people trying to throw him in the garbage are AFRAID. You are either afraid of the truth, or you are afraid because you are ignorant enough to believe BUSH when he tells you that it is required to take away your constitutional rights to protect you. OPEN YOUR MINDS EYE!!!!!!!
Well, I’m voting for Ron Paul, I’ve been a fan of his for a couple years now. You’re right about one thing, Not many “republicans” in the “paul machine”, whole lot of ex republicans tho. I left the party when we started bombing Iraq in 93 and there were new taxes. Been over at the libertarian party wishing for another goldwater conservative to rescue the GOP from the neo-con globalist fascism that has entrenched itself in, Ron Paul is that man. Not only because he is backed by REAL conservatives like myself but because he pulls in independents and even liberals, the neo-cons in the party are few and dwindling I’ve personally converted over a dozen fred tompson fans to paul fans myself, and it was easy to do. All I had to do was show them who Ron Paul was and what he stood for. oh, and by the way, I’ve voted in a couple online polls and have done some digging but I decided awhile back it would be more productive to go recruiting instead.
Good luck with your pro-torture status quo neo-cons, see you at the primary polls :)
Wow, you’ve ‘proven’ that Ron Paul supporters are ‘cheating’ at polls that no one cares about, are not binding in any manner of speaking, and generally don’t matter a lick. You must be proud of yourself. rolleyes
While Barry Goldwater’s famous quote, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” comes to mind, I think most of Dr. Paul’s supporters oppose rigging polls.
Hopefully more people will wake up and be as ardent in their support of Congressman Paul as his online supporters as he is the only candidate who still consistently thinks that the Constitution is relevant and worth discussing and protecting.
In his own words, “The freedom message brings us together.”
Sir,
A few minor observations.
I’m a MN Republican State delegate, precinct chair of rochester township, president of the federalist society at case western reserve school of law, a member of the NRA, a lifetime republican, and no one speaks for me but myself.
I am a member of the maligned Congressman Paul for Pres group on facebook, but you mistake the free ability of members of the group to post on the discussion boards with a concentrated effort by “the group” as such to spam or cheat.
Stephen Flynn was aware that his activities would not be favorably looked upon, but he is not representative of “paulites,” but merely one student. Why not consider the actions and labors of adults who have fought in campaigns before, who have fund-raised nationwide before, and who have beaten RINOs before.
It is reprehensible that some cheat, but what did the poll reflect prior to the “spamming”? The Congressman was as I recall around 5%. This ought not surprise anyone, Ron Paul is the only candidate running who while elected supported then governor Reagan in his bid for the white house in ‘76. The Republican Party nationwide has shifted dramatically to the left, resulting inevitably in the departure of traditional conservatives and libertarians alike, both groups which are naturally drawn to Paul. Merely because some of these disaffected republicans don’t regularly frequent gopstrawpolls.com doesn’t indicate that they don’t have a legitimate right to participate. I know myself that I am far more concerned with discussing ideas with others than with voting on some online “poll.” As a member of the rules committee in various state Republican conventions, I can attest to the presence of libertarian minded Republicans who are completely at wits end with the established party and “our” leadership.” While perhaps not a majority, they deserve a voice as well, and as you will learn when the 2008 election ends, if scorned, the Republican Party will suffer a tremendous electoral defeat. I will never vote for Giuliani, McCain or Romney, never, so help me God. I would rather have a socialist in the white house who I can trust to oppose right reason and true principles of American government than another pseudo-conservative who will do nothing but weaken the potential for a true restoration of constitutional liberties, federalism, limited government, and the rule of law. Edwards will raise taxes outright, Rudy McRomney and the others through deficit spending. In either situation, the result is the same, taxes will increase, either through direct levies or through inflation. Perhaps with defeat we may hope that Republicans will actually hold fast to the platform and advocate true individual liberty.
You rave about a few polls, but the true debates remain untouched. Your post is irresponsible sir. Paul may not win, but to marginalize what he advocates is to stifle the most principled, conscientious and constitutional voice in national politics. If he is too pure, too unsoiled by Washington despite these decades of experience, say so. If you differ in your interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, say it, but do not foist upon us this insidious slander. As a former student of Clarence Thomas, and as a law student, I regret that I must inform you that four of the justices on the Supreme Court believe in Congressman Paul’s construction of the Constitution: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. Perhaps you do not believe in the enforcement of our Constitution, perhaps you believe in a dynamic interpretation, a “living” document, but this is not conservative, it is not consistent with freedom, it is not Republican, it is statist and devoid of any conection with the freedom philosophy.
Have a nice day.
Benjamin S. Kuipers
Case Western Reserve School of Law
1) You generalized so much it hurts!! The facebook group you mentioned has over 8500 people… I think thats only second to Obama and the I F@#King HATE HILLARY CLINTON groups.
2) Who cares about polls that are poorly set up… I know I don’t. But HOW do you discredit polls like the post-debate phone text polls by Fox?
3) Go to meetup.com and do some searches for Ron Paul… I think youll find there is an insane amount of ACTING support across the nation… about to take our opinions to the street. Or was that spammed too?
-Enjoy all the traffic your getting! You are linked in the Facebook group.
Not sure why you posted my comment about how many people have been turned on to him since the debates. I’m sure that across the board you’ll find that most of the people who are supporting him now didn’t know much about him a few months ago. That may sound like a bad thing, but it’s still better than some of the alternatives who we know nothing about (Obama, Frank Thompson) or who have changed their long-held positions on issues important to us (Romney:gun control; Rudy:abortion,gun control; McCain:pretty much everything).
Not once in this article did you make any mention of Ron Paul’s stances on important issues nor the reasoning behind his stances.
As for meet-ups and demonstrations… you stand corrected:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RKzVmU_fQX0
Ron Paul is the GOP candidate with the most meet-up and eventful requests. Apparently you also didn’t see all the Ron Paul supporters with their signs at the last GOP Debate (in South Carolina).
I will agree with you though that there are always those who want to rig polls but that one Facebook icident was one of the very few times someone has mentioned it. The very large majority of Ron Paul supporters in that group realize that such ideas would only prove detrimental to thet campaign, that is why he received such a harsh backlash. Plus, it’s just not worth it in general since these are just silly little internet polls.
also posted at GOPBloggers.org
One point of order first.
The poll at GOPstrawPolls.com states that it is reset every day. From this I deduce that it is permissible to vote once per day. (but not more often than that)
If this is an incorrect assumption on my part, they should make this information more prominent on their website.
Now, the top 6 reasons that you should consider before laying the spamming charge on Dr. Paul’s supporters.
1) It might not be Dr. Paul’s supporters who are doing it, but rather someone supporting a different candidate who wishes to tar Dr. Paul. A real Ron Paul supporter (at least a smart one) would use proxies, and/or clear cookies.
2) The petition to keep Dr. Paul in the debates has, last I checked, over 17,000 signatures. It would probably be more, but the Michigan GOP had to withdraw the suggestion under intense pressure. This petition is IP logged, and includes mailing address as well as email address.
3) myspace, youtube, eventful, buddymaps and many other registration-only websites show Dr. Paul with a huge fan base, well above what ANY other GOP candidate has.
4) Dr. Paul’s odds, posted at 911gambling.com, have fallen dramatically in the last few weeks: (going from 200:1 prior to the debates, to 100:1 after the SC debate, to 15:1 once the youtube and myspace campaigns started gaining steam.) This dark horse is starting to look like a horse of a different color.
5) Gallup and several other so called “Scientific” polls have not even released any results that include Ron Paul since prior to the second debate.
What is Gallup Poll sitting on? Why no results since May 13th?
or they use a really small sample size (467)
Was Ron Paul even given as a choice in this Rasmussen poll? They certainly aren’t reporting any – However, The results don’t add up to 100%. They show a total of 32% unaccounted for (assuming a similar spread to the Zogby poll below: half of F. Thompson’s numbers going to Ron Paul would mean 6%, with 2% each for the other 6 candidates, and 14% undecided.) YMMV
Zogby shows Dr. Paul in 4th place in NH among declared candidates on 5/17 Granted, it’s only 3%, but it’s a lot more than Tancredo, Hagel, Hunter, Huckabee, T. Thompson, or Brownback recieved. Again, Where are the supporters for them? Furthermore 11% are undecided, and 6% are pulling for someone who isn’t even in the race. (F. Thompson) What will happen when the negative ads begin or F. Thompson decides not to run? If those voters should go to Paul (certainly a long shot, but not at all beyond the realm of possibility.) Then suddenly, he could be looking at second place with 20%. This would be perfectly in line with the Fox news text-message poll (which did not have an undecided, or an F. Thompson option.)
Many of Ron Paul’s supporters: do not have regular land lines (I have only a VOIP and a Cell Phone,) are on the do-not-call list (because they value their privacy) have unregistered from the GOP in protest (many polls are only calling registered Republicans who put their phone number on their registration card) over the war and totally out-of-control pork barrel SOCIAL PROGRAM spending. (I mean, who needs to worry about Hillary Care, when the GOP is pushing a brand new, never before offered, prescription drug benefit? – Sheesh!)
6) Fox News’ text meassge poll the night of the second debate is not capable of being spammed in the way you suggest, since they use caller ID to make sure each person only votes once.
If you are going to say that moveon.org rallied their troops to push Ron Paul as Sean Hannity has, then you must also acknowledge the possibility that the Mormon Church rallied their members to push Mitt Romney. Also, one would be left with the horrible conclusion that Democrats (willing to vote Ron Paul) outnumber “real” Republicans (willing to vote anyone else -assuming Mitt’s numbers are just the work of the Mormon church, which I am only suggesting hypothetically.) by about 10:1 and that nearly the entire viewership of a GOP debate on Fox News consisted of [Very Liberal] Democrats and members of the Mormon church.
Such public sentitment would seem to bode very poorly for the GOP in the upcoming election. Since Dr. Paul’s supporters will very likely desert in droves if he is not the nominee, the GOP would only be left with the Mormon church. (and they would only get that if Mitt is the nominee.) I know many, many, many staunch Republicans who will absolutely boycott the election if Giudy Ruliana or insane McCain is the nominee. My dear mother (as rabid a dubya supporter as ever there was) has already said she will not support a RINO in the primary, and is not contributing to the RNC any more.
Get ready for president Hillary. =8^O
Again: Where are the online supporters for the other candidates?
Finally, In the interest of fair voting, I have offered the following outline of a method to 100% gaurantee that there is no more spamming in this, or any other polls.
(This method assumes that it is permissible to vote once each day, see point of order above.)
Log each IP address, and make each user accept a cookie when they vote.
The first time each unique user votes (That is: if someone votes who does not have a cookie,) count their vote as “provisional”. Be sure to inform the user of this, and let them know that they may come back tomorrow, when their cookie will identify them, and their vote can be counted for real. This has the added advantage of allowing multiple users behind a single firewall to participate (my wife can’t vote in the GOPBloggers poll because we share an IP address, even though she has her own computer. She supports Congressman Paul too.) There are many people in apartment buildings for example that share an IP connection.
If someone is trying to stuff the ballot box (regardless of which camp they are in,) then they will have to clear cookies in order to do so and thus, every one of their votes will be provisional. if someone doesn’t clear cookies first, then you will spot them instantly: give them a warning if they try to vote twice in a day, and don’t count their vote. If some system admin behind a corporate or university fire wall tries to rig the vote by having each computer under their control vote for Ron Paul each day, then it will be obvious, since it is not very likely that a candidate would get 100% of the vote once the number of votes gets over 10. Especially true for corporate and college networks.
By posting the number of provisional votes versus verified votes, you will be able to clearly show the level of ballot stuffing. Especially if the provisional votes fail to materialize as real votes over the next few days.
Mr. Beutler, I appreciate your attempt to keep people honest in these polls, but the programming on a lot of these polls baffle me: why don’t they set it up to record IP addresses or verify email accounts so people cannot “spam” these sites?? Online polls may not be scientific, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be honest. Please direct some attention to these polling websites and make them smarter! I’m tired of hearing about this spamming.
I love how the comments totally refute this post, but if they didn’t do the same for you, why not try looking at what the campaign actually-SAYS:
http://wiki.ronpaulpresshub.com/index.php?title=Polls
says: “Please remember, you should place only 1 vote per poll. Thank you! Note: Anything else would harm Ron Paul and the very ideas he promotes. Most polls have a security feature which tracks your IP Address and makes it impossible to vote more than once – it is therefore also very easy to see whether there are a bunch of people trying to vote more than once for one candidate.”
But I suppose that’s just for public consumption, and actually we Ron Paul supporters are secretly PGPing encrypted messages to eachother so we can “manipulate” polls by voting in them. It’s great how many times I’ve been called “a spammer” for simply exercising my rights this year, certainly gives an insight into opponents’ mindsets, since they tend to accuse us of what they’re planning/doing in my experience…
JMR
It’s not a conspiracy. Here’s how I found your site tonight: I was interested in Paul because of his great debate performance, though I was already aware of his libertarian stances and reputation for sticking to his constitutional convictions.
I googled for news on him, found an article with tons of pro-Paul comments and found links in some of the comments about polls. I voted in the LA Times poll and would have voted for him in yours too if he were allowed.
Does that make me a conspirator? Paul’s supporters are just following the links in comments and posting their own links. It’s organic (far as I can tell) and not something that the campaign is masterminding.
And you don’t think other candidates do some of the things you are accusing Ron’s folks of doing? I take it as a really good sign that you feel threatened enough to attack “us” – using words like “they” to describe average americans who happen to support a truthful/amazing man running for president. We are all different – and there are more of us than you could possibly imagine—just tonight, walking down the street–I said hi to some punk kids walking down a dark alley — I asked them if they had ever heard of Ron Paul, and they replied that, “yeah, that guy is awesome” I love the fact that we worry you – or that it worries you that we have fooled ourselves about “our” numbers. Just live your life while you can—don’t rain on a party–you should join “us” and become part of the “they” Especially if you fancy yourself a Christian visit a myspace page I set up http://www.myspace.com/christiansforronpaul
good night.
~30k Meetup supporters
~51k myspace friends
~24k youtube subscribers
~17k facebook supporters
Ron Paul has over 30,000 registered volunteers. More than all other candidates combined. And more registering now at Meetup.com.
Dr. Ron Paul has the most contributions from U.S. military personnel and veterans above all other candidates. So support the troops and vote Ron Paul!
Ron Paul places 1st or 2nd in every straw poll, debate, and active participation survey.
Ron Paul is 1st on YouTube, Meetup, MySpace, Technorati, Alexa, Clickz, Google, etc. The old media is just too slow to realize what is happening.
Do not listen to the so called ‘Scientific Polls’. Ron Paul is not included in the cleverly woven questions pollsters are asking. This has been well documented.
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were doing about the same in the ‘Scientific Polls’ at this stage in their elections. ‘Scientific Polls’ at this stage only measure name recognition. Over the next six months Ron Paul will gain name recognition. Most people who learn about Ron Paul become major supporters.
A big problem with our electoral process is that the old media generally supports the richest candidates (who got their money from special interest). Those are the worst candidates because they are owned by special interest and lobbyists. Hopefully the internet will help restore balance and choice.
Dr. Ron Paul is the only major candidate not owned by military-industrial-complex, corporations, special interest, lobbyists, etc. Fix the system and vote Ron Paul. And tell everyone you know. Now is the time to set ourselves free.
The American people know that something is very wrong in Washington. The American people want change!
Visit YouTube and search Ron Paul to learn more…
Join the Revolution — Vote Ron Paul!
Go Ron Paul! Set the people free.
remember taxes are coercive in nature. The government can only collect taxes by using government agents who compel people to pay by threatening prison sentences/fines. Taxes are tyranny.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies coercion against innocent individuals. Taxes should be used for the bare minimum (the police, courts, etc), and nothing else. People’s health problems DO NOT JUSTIFY applying coercion to people to be able to collect funds for government social programs. Coercively collecting resources for social programs is tyrannical and evil.
So basically, you are upset because some college kids on facebook posted a link to a site with an unscientific poll on it?
I’m confused, what about when Romney’s official campaign sent his supporters an e-mail the days before the the FRC Action straw poll encouraging them to vote in the online straw poll if they weren’t attending in person? (Romney won that poll, http://www.frcaction.org/)
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/romneycampstackingthevalue.html
Now there is an unethical action, by the Romney campaign, that is worth writing about. Then again maybe you should continue your hard hitting investigative work on Facebook who knows maybe you can find a picture of one of these kids drinking under age. That would really stick it to ‘em. See my point?
P.S. I also think it is boarder line unethical to be posting those peoples pictures and full names outside of Facebook. If you want to post a screen shot fine but you should be blurring at least the last name and locations.