Romney's Florida Vote Scam:
Ron Paul Twofer: Little Debate Time, Straw Poll Bought by Romney?
Thursday, November 29, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
NEWS ANALYSIS/OPINION
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Here are two reports. FMNN can directly vouch for neither. But together, if true, they provide an ongoing “snapshot” of what was sadly to be expected when Ron Paul (R-Tex) began his limited-government presidential run. Both are likely disappointing to those comforted by the certainty of civil society and the ineluctable unrolling of a “fair” presidential political process as the primary season percolates.
First is the most recent CNN debate itself which should have accorded free-market presidential candidate the courtesy his increasingly important candidacy deserves. But according to a post (below) at the New York Times (from LewRockwell.com), CNN treated Ron Paul brusquely, providing him few minutes to get his message across.
Even more oddly, there are at least some reports that flatly accuse "gold standard" GOP presidential-candidate Mitt Romney not just of buying a recent Tampa Bay, Florida straw poll, but of outright cheating. It’s one thing, after all, to buy tickets for supporters at a straw poll, but another to have the same person vote over and over again. Perhaps he didn’t know what was happening. Or perhaps, within the GOP’s intricate rule-book, it’s somehow “legal.” Doesn’t sound right, though.
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thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
1:15 am ” Anti-Ron Discrimination
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 09:54 PM
Here’s the amount of time each candidate got:
Romney — 7:03, during 9 times
McCain — 5:09, during 4 times
Giuliani — 5:08, during 9 times
Thompson — 4:38, during 4 times
Huckabee — 4:14, during 5 times
Paul — 3:27, during 4 times
Tancredo — 2:20, during 4 times
Hunter — 2:16, during 3 times
(Thanks to Brad Funkhauser)”
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Here’s part of the Meet Up post on the Tampa Bay straw poll, seen at FMNN:
freemarketnews.com
Romney, GOP FL Big Poll QUESTIONS?
Thursday, November 29, 2007 - FreeMarketNews.com
1st I want to make one thing very clear. RON PAUL OWNED ST. PETERSBERG!!!!! I mean this very literally when I say there was NO other signs in the entire city for ANY other candidate besides Ron Paul. ONLY in a little piece of grass by the water, in which they were doing the straw poll, did Romney or Ghooliani have any signs. And even there those were lost in a sea of bright blue Ronnies!!!
There was 3....THREE!!!!!! airplanes flying over head with different Ron Paul messages. HUGE banners with Ron Pauls portrait hanging from the sides of buildings. Hundreds of supporters EVERYWHERE waving signs and wearing Ron Paul clothing. The fact of the matter is, there just wasn't any support for any other candidate! Literally. NONE!!!!
SO.....at the straw poll of course there were just hundreds of Ron Paul supporters. He was winning by a landslide. THEN we noticed Mitt Romney had set up a little table and was passing out tickets by the dozens. Now you have to realize that it was $20 a ticket, so the Romney camp must have shelled out the big bucks because they had two bags FULL of tickets that they were giving them to their few supporters MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!!
I WANT EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND THIS>>>>>>>
MULTIPLE TIMES!! YES! You heard right. Mitt Romneys camp was blatantly getting people to vote multiple times and the local GOP did NOTHING to stop them. I watched it all with my own eyes, otherwise I would not be writing this right now. THAT IS THE AMERICA WE ARE LIVING IN FOLKS!!!!
They just don't care about any kind of democratic process. It only mattered that Mitt come out on top. When they saw Ron Paul would win by a landslide, they had to do something. Only thing to do though was cheat. And they obviously had no problem doing that. It was truly unbelievable. We were all in shock! -MeetUp
ronpaul.meetup.com
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NOTE TO READERS: The full post for some reason is not currently accessible. However, there also what appear to be first-hand reports about the straw poll in the well-respected St. Petersburg Times.
See: blogs.tampabay.com
Some excerpts:
I too saw people purchasing more than one ticket, and voting multiple times. What the hell is up with that??? I have plenty of money, I would have gladly skewed the results towards my candidate!!! I was out there all day, Paul supporters heavily out numbered all the other candidates... this smells funny.
Posted by: Cedric | November 29, 2007 at 01:27 AM
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St. Pete Straw Poll
From my personal observation, I'd say that Ron Paul supporters out numbered all other candidates' supporters that showed up by at least 5 to 1. In fact, I joked to a couple of people that Judy Riuliani actually had some supporters there and that I'd seen both of them.
The straw poll was really abused, however. I saw one lady voting 3 different times for Romney. The first time she bragged that she was voting 80 tickets. My friend Mike videoed yet another Romney supporter (or were they paid personnel of his campaign staff?) voting multiple tickets, too. I'll ask him to post this on youtube.com. So my question is this: is Romney buying the straw poll?
I think this is a lot different from having 500+ supporters show up, some of them driving hundreds of miles. There were easily 5-10 times as many Ron Paul supporters there than Romney supporters.
What good is a straw poll if it can just be bought by someone with a lot of money? What does it really show?
Posted by: Dan | November 29, 2007 at 01:49 AM
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I want my 20 dollars back...
Posted by: Cedric | November 29, 2007 at 02:08 AM
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I was there and personally watched a woman recieve a stack of voting cards two inches thick and vote for Romney over and over...then she got back in line. When asked what she was doing she said, "That's how politics works" Mitt spent a ton of money to buy this straw poll. There is video to prove it. You may be able to do this here but come election day one person=one vote (unless Diebold machines are used)
Ron Paul supporters were not rude, spewing 9/11 or anything else. There was one guy dressed strange but that was it. Old people, young people, sharp dressed, casually dressed. Anyone who was there can't deny that Paul's support is diverse and passionate. What a joke this straw poll was. I hope the GOP enjoys my $20 because they won't be getting anymore. I'm a lifelong Republican and fed up with this kind of politics.
Posted by: | November 29, 2007 at 07:13 AM
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FEEDBACK:
1. 11/29/2007 - 19:52:18PM
BY: two posts
1. 11/29/2007 - 19:0:50PM
BY: Andy
Expect more of the same at Iowa and New Hampshire. Electronic voting will make cheating a piece of cake.
2. 11/29/2007 - 19:32:49PM
BY: Greg Lippold
American politics is rotten to the core. The more popular Mr. Paul becomes the bigger the threat to the political machine in place. The machine is crumbling, this is truly a peaceful revolution. One day MSM and the neocons will do something so outlandish that their judgement comes into question. Then we win !
2. 11/29/2007 - 20:31:36PM
BY: rhys
I live in Saint Petersburg, and I saw it too. The whole downtown area was Paul Country. I didn't see a single supporter of anyone but Paul. His supporters rented out a Theater right down the street from the debate and that thing was filled with Paul supporters. As cars left the debate there was a Paul sign waving group, and there were many Paul supporters in the debate hall. After the debate Paul came out to the Theater and gave a talk. Then we had a 40 minute sign waving out on the street.
They keep saying he doesn't have a chance, but if money doners is any indication, Paul had 38,000 doners to his campaign on Nov. 5th. In the 3rd quarter Clinton had 32,000 total doners, Obama had 40,000 total doners, Giu11ani had 25,000 total doners, and Romney had 27,000 total doners. Paul's average donation was smaller, but if doner numbers matter, Paul is in the lead in the Republican Party.
3. 11/29/2007 - 20:51:48PM
BY: Christopher Thurow
First I would like to send out a big thank you to the Republican Party of Florida for throwing Ron Paul such a nice party! It was great and it was also nice that they let a few other candidate supporters come in! Now about that "voting". The St. Petersburg Times (not a Ron Paul supporter at all) ran a story this morning about the vote scam by the Romney people. All four of them.
It's all true and there are videos available from the Clearwater Meetup group actually "showing" Romney people voting with a stack of ballots! One Romney toadie had 50 ballots! 50! he was caught red handed by the St. Pete Times. Dontcha' just feel the love?
4. 11/29/2007 - 21:22:47PM
BY: Adam
I was there and can vouch this article is accurate.
You can read an additional article by the St. Pete Times at this link:
sptimes.com
5. 11/29/2007 - 21:59:0PM
BY: electronpaul2008
Ron Paul supporters when going to any of those events need to BRING VIDEO CAMERAS with you to film any abuse and cheating done by other so called "candidates". And then post it on the internet. This will spread like fire and they will be trounced.
6. 11/29/2007 - 22:13:10PM
BY: Greg Lippold
We need copies of those news papers.
7. 11/29/2007 - 22:15:54PM
BY: Scott McDonnell
Here in my state when we held our straw poll, Romney's staffer were manning it, and he had not only paid all expenses for people to come up there, he also gave them $50 to vote for him.
Most of the Romney supporters we talked to at the Ron Paul booth told us that they hadn't heard of Romney before this and knew little about his positions. They also revealed to us that they were getting paid to vote. Supposedly we have video of some of the interviews with his supporters admitting this (and grabbing Ron Paul buttons.) I saw them confessing, but haven't seen the video interviews yet (I had left the booth.)
Anyone claiming Romney isn't buying his fake support is kidding themselves. Of ANY other candidate, the GOP is going to lose big time if Romney is successful. No one will actually show up to vote for him besides die-hards that will vote Republican no matter who it is (hmm.. maybe Clinton should run as a Republican... yes, they would vote for her then.) I'll see if I can figure out who has the video.
8. 11/29/2007 - 23:18:0PM
BY: CNN Poll
Today I was talking to my Mom in Michigan I am from Texas, I asked her to take the CNN poll about the Debate last night (we both watched it). I took the poll one hour before her from the following URL: cnn.com
I asked her to read me the results and I compared them to mine. I noticed that Ron Paul had 3,000 less votes then when I took mine a hour before on the same question. Kind of funny how Ron Paul lost 3,000 votes in a hour.
9. 11/29/2007 - 23:25:42PM
BY: NSB
Just finished watching the videos. Kind of sick to my stomach now. I know for a fact that this will interest the people of NH...hopefully Iowa also. Is there ANY CHANCE the MSM will pick up the story? Perhaps not nationally at first but the Boston Globe, the Union Leader and Concord Monitor...will all be receiving redundant emails shortly.
10. 11/29/2007 - 23:45:24PM
BY: electronpaul2008
Lets find those Romney cheating videos and post them on the web and make a news wave.
11. 11/30/2007 - 1:9:18AM
BY: zekeu
I was there too and personally witnessed several Romney cheaters. Here is one video documenting the cheating:
s44.photobucket.com
12. 11/30/2007 - 2:4:4AM
BY: I was there
Romney supporters cheat. I was there and personally witnessed it. Here is some video evidence:
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