Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Huckabee Thinks Paul Isn't A Candidate An automated "survey" calling machine is making calls in Virginia prior to Tuesday's primary in support of Huckabee which asks who Virginians will support among John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee. Ron Paul isn't on the list of choices.by Walt Thiessen
(Libertarian)
Saturday, February 9, 2008
In a phone survey being offered to Virginia Republican voters today, just two days before the Virginia primary, Ron Paul is once again persona non grata. According to the survey, he doesn't exist.
I took the call just a few minutes ago from this survey outfit. It starts off by asking if I'd be willing to spend 45 seconds on their survey. I said okay. That turned out to be a joke. Seven minutes later, the phone call finally finished.
Anyway, they began by asking if I was voting on Tuesday. I said yes. They asked if I would be voting in the Republican primary. I said yes again. Then they asked me the big question: "Now that Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race, who do you plan to support, John McCain or Mike Huckabee?" There was no option for picking Ron Paul. I laughed and said, "Neither one."
Apparently, the computer making the call wasn't happy with the answer, so it asked me specifically, "Do you plan to vote for John McCain?" I answered no. I gave the same answer when it asked whether I was voting for Huckabee. Not to be outdone, the computer then asked if I was going to vote for Romney even though he had dropped out of the race. I answered no yet again.
The programmer still wasn't satisfied, so that's when he had the computer start in on the loaded questions. Apparently, the programming assumes that if you aren't supporting Huckabee or McCain you must be supporting Romney. It proceeded to give me a series of some of the most loaded questions I've ever heard that made it quite clear who the survey was being made for. Every question was designed to make Mike Huckabee sound good. Every question was designed to make Mitt Romney sound bad. Every question was designed to marginalize front-runner John McCain. And of course, Ron Paul was nowhere to be found in any survey question.
It then proceeded to ask me a series of issue questions, using each issue to make a direct argument about why Mike Huckabee is the best choice, then asked me whether I agreed. The questions were so heavily loaded that a six-year-old would have said, "Huh?"
The funniest/saddest part was when the call finally ended, another voice came on the phone just before it hung up and said that the survey was being conducted by a group whose name I couldn't catch (it was said very quickly) and which I didn't recognize. Then, the voice completed the call by saying that they weren't associated with any political campaign. That's when I burst out laughing.
Just in case the people who programmed and paid for that automated survey computer want to know, I'm planning to vote for Ron Paul on Tuesday. Take that and stick it up your survey computer!
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2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.
Published: Saturday, February 9, 2008
Last modified: Saturday, February 9, 2008
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One of the best things to come out of the home computer revolution could be the general and widespread understanding of how severely limited logic really is.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-09 15:18:15
Well, I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure Mike Huckabee's campaign is behind it. They just hired someone to be their "front." After all, why would anyone else run a survey like that?
Well your article to me is more sane then one I took two months ago which offered all the GOP options but when you choose Paul the survy asked what kind of soup I prefered or what was my fav sexual position. So my girlfriend picked the rudy section and a number of great questions were asked. She didn't vote for Rudy of course in her state this week but we wanted to see if the info varied.
Of course the polls, media has shown there true colors.
The Rafer man is now a Ron Paul elected deligate hee hee ya buddy thats right . Big Lake caucuse elected 5 delgates two for Ron Paul, one protest vote for mitt Romney, and two for Huckaby and one alternate for Ron Paul. This was my first Republican Caucus, I brought down the house when the McShame supporters a husband and wife started to insult me, I blasted them with facts about John McShame, They got up and stormed out, So Ron Supporters just use facts, and truth watch the Angry little troll supporters storm out. No one voted for ya John Boy. Ron Paul will do well in Washington State, I educated many people to today, about Ron Paul's posititions on the issue's. One guy said yeah but he does not have a snowballs chance. I responded stop saying he can't win, Because the votes have not been counted yet, If you think McShame can beat Hillary or Baby O, You have another thing coming. Ron Paul 08
Posted By: Steve Bachman
Date: 2008-02-09 18:55:55
It cracks me up, all these people who say "Ron Paul supporters should do some research and learn about what the guy is really all about," as if they are all-knowing and all-wise, and we Paul supporters are just blind sheeple who don't do our homework.
The irony is that the reality is the exact opposite. I've never known of a more well-informed, educated, engaged, deeply knowledgable and versed in history, economics, and current events, group of people than the great mass of Ron Paul supporters.
The people who make comments like Mr. Bob Miller's up there, generally fall into one of three groups: Warped, warmongering neocons (who's brand of "conservatism" is just an Americanized, modern variant of German National Socialism), commited leftist-socialists (who's High Deity is the State, and all it's Works -- opposition to the State is a form of blasphemy to them), and just your plain old, garden variety sheeple, probably considers themselves a "centrist," but who's entire breadth of knowledge is derived solely from what their favorite FOXMSNBCNN pundit has spoonfed them.
Keep up the fight, lovers of liberty! The Second American Revolution is at hand!
Posted By: Louis Nardozi
Date: 2008-02-09 19:23:04
Now the mask is torn, for those who wish to see. The MSM is used to controlling your every waking thought. They were absolutely TERRIFIED Dr. Paul might be elected. That is why the only coverage of Dr. Paul any person has seen on the MSM has been coverage of the only 'scandal' they could dream up on him. Forget the debates - they were unable to exclude him from them without an obvious outcry even from today's current mind-numbed populace. Think - how many times did you see "news" coverage on say Romney or Huckabee versus Paul, despite his superior fund raising and grassroots support. No, the MSM FREELY ADMITTED it was his IDEOLOGY that made him a "fringe candidate". They didn't come to that conclusion after a full season of campaigning - they DECIDED it at the outset. When the three-way contest made it possible to get to the convention without a majority, Romney bowed out to make it much more difficult for Paul to be nominated. He even said as much. Just remember people, whatever they WANT you to believe, it's fairly certain the opposite is true. The biggest joke was Dr. Paul being in favor of corporations - he would have worked to close the loopholes that give them advantage over small businesses. The SECOND biggest joke was foreign policy - Dr. Paul received more donations from Active Duty military than all other candidates COMBINED. Who knows - maybe some miracle will happen and we'll make it to a brokered convention. Even if we don't, the coming economic catastrophe will be the best political advertisement ever devised. Just remember you heard it from the Paultards first.
Actually, the group making those push polls is TrustHuckabee, which is NOT affiliated with the Huckabee campaign. Mike has actually asked them to stop the calls many times. I hope this doesn't reflect too poorly on Mike. He'd never stoop this low. As a Huckabee supporter, I've got a lot of respect for Dr. Paul and his supporters. I hope you guys would consider checking us out if Dr. Paul decides to suspend his campaign. We've got a great grassroots campaign going on, just like you guys. Check us out at www.hucksarmy.com
I got the exact same phone "survey" that you are talking about in here Washington State. It went down the exact same line of questioning for me too. At one point I was so pissed I was actually arguing with it.
Computers always seem to win the argument unless you have access to their power cord.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-10 10:03:01
Thanks for the name, Chris. That's pretty pathetic that Mike Huckabee is unable to get his own "supporters" to stop doing something he considers to be counterproductive to his own campaign. It makes me wonder just how ineffective a leader Huck really is.
Actually, Walt, Mike said that, by election rules, he's not allowed to contact TrustHuckabee because of McCain-Feingold. Believe me, he's ticked about it and wishes he could do something about it, unfortunately, thanks to John McCain's siding with the Democrats to pass campaign finance reform, there's not anything he can do. I think Paul and Huckabee supporters need to be coming together to prevent John McCain from getting the nomination, instead of fighting amongst ourselves, and I wish this group, TrustHuckabee, wouldn't make things worse for us with these push polls.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-11 07:58:55
You miss my point, Chris. The people behind TrustHuckabee think so little of their leader that they refuse to obey his wishes. That's the lack of leadership I was referring to. What good is it to be a leader if your followers refuse to follow your lead?
I wasn't referring to Huckabee's legal options. I was referring to his inability to influence his own supporters.
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2008 Walt Thiessen, all rights reserved.