Blatant Reality

No matter if you like Ron Paul or absolutely hate him, the fact still remains that he has currently won the most straw polls according to USAStrawPolls.com.

With Ron Paul’s win at the Wake County Young Republicans Straw Poll, Ron Paul has taken sole possession of the lead with respect to total number of straw poll victories. Fred Thompson is in second place with 24 straw poll wins, and Mitt Romney whose 22 wins finishes out the Top 3.

Its funny that the media hasn’t made a bigger deal of this considering how poorly he has done in regular polls. Here is an article that explains what this all might mean for Paul.

I posted an article back in August discussing how Ron Paul had the largest Meetup support and how this service was key in Howard Dean’s surge of support. Looking at the list of presidential Meetup groups now, Ron Paul’s group has almost tripled its membership since August while Barack Obama’s group has actually lost members. Here is a list of the top presidential Meetup groups:

Ron Paul:
87,105 Members in 1,415 Meetup Groups, 8,626 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Mike Huckabee:
6,881 Members in 318 Meetup Groups, 707 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Dennis Kucinich:
2,513 Members in 95 Meetup Groups, 2,612 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Barack Obama:
3,629 Members in 66 Meetup Groups, 2,120 waiting for a Meetup Group

It really is funny that the top candidates aren’t utilizing this service more fully. You would have thought they would have learned from Howard Dean’s campaign on how to really get the grassroots working for you. I’m still baffled at how much support Ron Paul seems to have online compared to how poorly he performs in all the polls. It really has to mean something though I’m not quite sure yet. A surprise surge of support in the primaries maybe? Who knows?

The latest American Research Group poll shows that Ron Paul has actually risen from 4% in Iowa to 10%.

Just four days ago, a poll ARG took Dec. 16-19 showed Dr. Paul with the support of just 4% of Iowa caucusers. Four days later, a poll taken Dec. 20-23 by this same polling organization shows him at 10%, more than twice his previous support level. The poll shows nearly all of Paul’s main opponents dropping in their support, including front runner Mike Huckabee who lost five points to 23%, down from 28% four days prior. The only main opponent who rose was Mitt Romney, whose support rose four points after an 11 point drop from their prior poll. This is most likely a bounce after a fall due to the controversy regarding Romney’s religious beliefs.

This same poll found that even though Huckabee’s support may have dropped roughly 5%, out of those who said they would vote for him, 88% said that their vote was definite. That was the highest voter loyalty out of any of the candidates. The actual poll data can be found here.

If you just go by the number of people that have joined Meetup groups, Ron Paul leading the pack of presidential hopefuls, both Republican and Democrat. Here are just some of the numbers to give you an idea.

Ron Paul 2008
29,810 Members in 740 Meetup Groups, 4,511 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Barack Obama
4,039 Members in 70 Meetup Groups, 1,520 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Dennis Kucinich
1,373 Members in 42 Meetup Groups, 2,459 waiting for a Meetup Group

 

Hillary Rodham Clinton
851 Members in 28 Meetup Groups, 1,074 waiting for a Meetup Group

Now only Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich have a “Meetup” logo prominently displayed on their pages so that could be the reason that Clinton and Obama don’t have as high of membership. However, even all the members combined is a pittance compared to Howard Dean’s Meetup support of over 140,000 in 2003.

By mid-November, the Howard Dean group on Meetup would have more than 140,000 members, though Meetup would matter less.