I just read this ridiculous letter by Allen Wastler, the Managing Editor of CNBC.com. Writing about the CNBC poll taken after the most recent Republican debate, Wastler says

Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.

Why on earth does he think so? What is the evidence for such a statement? CNBC’s poll had only 7,000 votes when the poll was taken down. Ron Paul typically gets over 1,000 supporters at in-person rallies. As of today, there are over 53,000 people who have joined Ron Paul meetups. That’s 53,000 people who care about Ron Paul’s candidacy. And yet, when the poll shows Ron Paul winning with 75% of the vote after only 7,000 votes, Wastler concludes that there must be foul play.

Why is it that every internet poll is treated with suspicion? Why is it that non-internet polls are seen as legitimate? I don’t get it.

Would Wastler have taken down the poll if Fred Thompson was winning by that margin? Or Romney? I doubt it because that would correspond to the conventional “wisdom” about who the front-runners are in this campaign.

After the debate on Fox, they had a poll in which you needed to use a cell phone to vote in the poll. When Ron Paul won that poll, Hannity concluded that it must be Ron Paul spammers calling over and over. The only thing Hannity missed was that the poll prevented that from happening using caller id. Oops.

I’m wondering at what point the “it must be spammers” nonsense will stop. When Ron Paul raises over $10 million in a quarter? When he wins New Hampshire?