Oct 12, 2007
To: Allen Wastler
Managing Editor, CNBC.com
From: Paul Levinson, PhD
Professor & Chair, Department of Communication and Media
Studies
Fordham University, NYC
re: your An
Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful of October 11, in which
you explain why you took down your poll, conducted after the
Michigan Republican Presidential debate, and featured on your web
site
1. You invite comments and response to your Open Letter, and
provide an e-mail address. Since your action is, in my view, a
matter of great public concern, I am not only e-mailing this
response to you, but publishing it in my InfiniteRegress.tv blog
and here on LightonLightThrough.
2. I am not one of the "Ron Paul Faithful". Although I greatly
admire many of his positions, especially his support of our
Constitution, I have not yet endorsed any candidate, and am indeed
on record as urging Americans to support the best candidate in each
of our two main parties, so as to give us the best choice in the
general election. You are welcome to see my
How About We Look for the Best Candidate in =Both= Parties for
details.
2a. I am writing to you, therefore, as a professor, scholar, and
observer of media and politics, with a keen interest in seeing the
press serve our democracy as Thomas Jefferson and our Founding
Fathers intended - that is, by providing us with the truth wherever
possible.
3. Let me now address the issues you raise in your Open Letter:
You write that "these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific
and subject to hacking".
True, but the "scientific" polls - the ones that rely on random
sampling - are subject to error, as well. See, for example, the
famous poll that predicted that FDR would lose the
1936 Presidential election.
Also, while the Internet may indeed be subject to hacking, do you
have any proof that hacking took place in this case? You further
say that your "poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign".
Again, your proof?
You further say that "[t]he next day, our email basked was flooded
with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the
poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned
other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar
fashion."
None of the above actions are "hacking". You owe Ron Paul's
supporters and the American people an apology.
Indeed, the fact that the polls reflected votes "from Ron Paul chat
sites" does not even support your conclusion that your poll was
"the target of a campaign" - conceivably some of the votes that
came from the sites could have come from people who had come to the
sites, impressed by what they saw of Ron Paul in the debate, and
then went on to cast their votes in your poll. Does that sound to
you like "a campaign"?
You further say that Ron Paul's supporters, presumably including
anyone who voted for Ron Paul in your poll, "also ruined the
purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest 'show of hands' --
it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum."
What do you suppose influences public opinion in any election
campaign? What is your definition of an "honest show of hands"? Is
a potential voter who expresses support for a candidate, because
that potential voter already liked that candidate prior to a given
debate, somehow not "honest"? If what you wanted to measure in your
poll was how previously undecided people felt about the performance
of candidates in the debate, why did you not say so in your poll,
and devise some way of measuring this? (For example, trying to
identify a sample of undecided voters beforehand, and then asking
them for their preferences after the debate?)
Instead, you conclude your Open Letter with the following: "When a
well-organized and committed 'few' can throw the results of a
system meant to reflect the sentiments of 'the many,' I get a
little worried. I'd take it down again."
Again, you offer no evidence whatsoever that anything in the poll
was "thrown," and you similarly offer no evidence about how "few"
of the "many" were composed of Ron Paul supporters.
Indeed, you offer no evidence of anything, really - just
supposition and innuendo - and that gets me more than a little
worried, about your competence and capacity to be Managing Editor
of CNBC.com's website.
If something needs to be "taken down," it may well be your position
as Managing Editor. I call upon you to either apologize to the
American people, or step down.