More on Ron Paul’s military support
Someone dropped off this link in the comments the other day of my post about Ron Paul’s claim that based on his donations from the military, he enjoys massive support from active duty military members. the link is to an article by JJ Jackson in that Conservative Canadian media known as the Canada Free Press. Jackson contends that if you divide the total amount of money contributed to Paul’s campaign by $1, it means only about 4.4% of the military actually supports Paul. Of course, that percentage dwindles as you get closer to the real amounts of the contributions;
What is sad, though, is that sometimes Paulbots are able to fool enough people and parlay this phony sense of support into actual results. See the final vote count of the Iowa Caucuses where Mr. Paul netted more than 21% of the vote.
Of course, the comments blow up with Paulians trying to discredit the formula. I couldn’t resist commenting to this;
Well, clearly the author has some homework to do when it comes to statistics. The fallacy of the main point he attempts to make consists in the tacit assumption that all those who do not make a contribution do not support Paul. Following this reasoning, it would seem that some 90% of the military have no political preferences at all, given that Paul received more contributions from the sector than all other GOP candidates combined and more than Obamao.
The most reliable measure of one’s preferences is one supported with one’s cash. Preferences of those who contribute are then extrapolated over those who don’t. There is nothing inappropriate about it, unless the author has convincing evidence that noncontributing soldiers are distributed in a significantly different manner. Arguing that they all are against Ron Paul is plain silly and rather embarrassing.
My question;
How is that different from the Paulbots implying that Paul gets more money from the military than any other candidate because the military overwhelmingly supports Paul for president?
The answer, of course;
The difference goeas [sic] back to sampling. Since you have no reasonable way to ask all military whom they want as President, you take some of them who revealed their preferences and then say that the sample distribution is roughly the same as the population distribution (i.e., how the military would vote as a whole).
What? I guess he means that the sampling can only be correctly construed by Paulbots, as long as it ends up in their favor. There’s no way to accurately call donations to Paul “overwhelming support” for him from the military given all of the outliers, like people who donate less than $1000 who don’t have to list their occupation, or the fact that Paulians are known to be devious enough to call themselves members of the military when they aren’t just to inflate the perception.
Hey, Paulians, extrapolate this.
Category: Ron Paul
The numbers don’t add up because the Bilderburgers, the Priory of Scion and the Elders of Zion stole all of the proof and are using it to fuel the mind altering intoxicants found in commercial airliner contrails. True story.
I look at bumperstickers……I have not seen a RP sticker on a car on Post (FT Knox) where I’m stationed. I saw alot of McCain stickers during the last election and a few Obama ones.
@2. Of course you have not seen Paul bumper stickers! Most of us cannot–at least, not with the naked eye. But there is a way to tell whether there is a Paul sticker on a vehicle. If you look at a bumper and there’s no sticker at all on it, well, that’s a Ron Paul sticker. If another candidate’s bumper sticker is there, that’s not a Paul supporter. See how easy it is? It’s just like the statistics for military support of Paul!
I needed that laugh, 2-17.
Just go for the cars that smell like vinegar. That’s usually a dead giveaway.
Here’s the hypocrisy of it.
Yes, the vast majority of military personnel haven’t given any money to any candidate. That means that we don’t know their political preference. We can’t assume that they are for or against Ron Paul. He goes on to say, “The most reliable measure of one’s preferences is one supported with one’s cash. Preferences of those who contribute are then extrapolated over those who don’t. There is nothing inappropriate about it, unless the author has convincing evidence that noncontributing soldiers are distributed in a significantly different manner.”
He’s doing the same thing in reverse. He’s arguing that he can discern the opinions of the ninety percent without any data. All you have to do is ASSUME that it’s uniform across the board. That’s a pretty wild assumption. And because the author can’t “prove” that the noncontributing soldiers are distributed in a significantly different manner–proving a negative, essentially–that means we’ll just go ahead and assume that everyone in the military is a mindless Paulbot. I would ask, how do you “prove” the political preferences of a group of people who have made no indications of their political preferences?
The lesson learned here is that a table of donations is no substitute for a scientific opinion poll.
“The most reliable measure of one’s preferences is one supported with one’s cash.”
So are we then to assume that those who have contributed nothing don’t give a damn?
“The most reliable measure of one’s preferences is one supported with one’s cash.”
Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean that the amount of cash is proportional to the number of supporters. For example, one soldier can donate thousand dollars, and another fifty. In the end, however, each of those soldiers has only one vote.
Given the way Ron Paul sucks money out of people’s pockets like a 1980’s televangelist (voluntarily, of course), I think the most logical explanation is that a small proportion of the military supports Ron Paul, but with a lot of enthusiasm. I might even call it wild eyed fanaticism. Their fanaticism leads them to give lots and lots of money, far in excess of their actual numbers.
Paul wants you to assume the opposite. Because he gets a lot of money from them, that means that his base of support is wide.
Ben, you just nailed it. Paul is a huckster, a political version of Elmer Gantry, and nothing more.
Ask his supporters why he’s a Republican when he very publicly left the GOP back in the 1980’s, and burned a number of bridges in doing so.
Stand by for them to look like a bunch of carp.
This one always stumps a Paulbot.
Why should we care who supports Ron Paul? If the military supports Ron Paul, does that mean that his candidacy and his message speaks to them? In other words, does their support carry meaning?
If the answer is yes, then why should we ignore the support Ron Paul receives from the 9/11 truther crowd, the KKK, Stormfront, Neo-Nazis, and various nutjob conspiracy theorists? Why should we ignore the fact that the Paul campaign had Randy Gray, a KKK organizer, as its Midland County (Michigan) coordinator?
Their stock answer is that a “candidate cannot control who supports him.” And that’s true. But Ron Paul could do more to repudiate them. As far as I’ve seen, he winks and waves at them.
But what’s more important is that THERE MUST BE A REASON why they support him. They want us to believe that there’s no reason at all. The fringe of the fringe were just mysteriously drawn to a congressman who was obscure until about five years ago. Not because his message spoke to them. Not because they see Ron Paul as the fulfillment of their nutty, racist fantasies. No reason at all.
I can’t support anybody who has the support of the wack job liberal left…never mind Storm Front or the KKK. This is why the guy is dismissed by the MSM and cable news. How can you have a candidate associated with those groups. Its ok if your guy is best friends with the Weather Underground and your a Dem but then the GOP likes the appearance of being somewhat normal.
But what’s more important is that THERE MUST BE A REASON why they support him. They want us to believe that there’s no reason at all. The fringe of the fringe were just mysteriously drawn to a congressman who was obscure until about five years ago. Not because his message spoke to them. Not because they see Ron Paul as the fulfillment of their nutty, racist fantasies. No reason at all.. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Paul’s fanatical supporters(I use the term LOOSELY)are either attending higher education (mostly)or employed in academia and/or other forms of government. So this what you do, combine what the mush heads are learning in college, toss in a dash of the likes of Adam Kokesh and a slight dash of anarchy and you pretty much have the makeup of those Ron Paul supporters. His message has spoken to them, repeatedly by the way….
[…] This military donation stuff has been spun and people are eating it up like candy. A good milblog http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=28245 Last edited by tc86gn; Today at 02:09 […]
And we have asshats like this “turbobuick” @ #13 that somehow manage to find their way here…
I agree with you Jonn. At least we are now starting to disassemble this myth, hopefully other parts of the conservative media will pick it up and disseminate it from there.
#8″Given the way Ron Paul sucks money out of people’s pockets like a 1980?s televangelist (voluntarily, of course), I think the most logical explanation is that a small proportion of the military supports Ron Paul, but with a lot of enthusiasm. I might even call it wild eyed fanaticism. Their fanaticism leads them to give lots and lots of money, far in excess of their actual numbers.” This is what I also suspect Ben. That is then complimentated by the outright liers.
Not to rain on an old parade.. but despite this forums desire to dismiss them when they don’t reflect your own personal prejudices, statistics are always determined more or less the same way.. A cross section of a given population is sampled and the proportions that are found within that cross section are then projected to a larger scale. This is nothing new nor devious.. It is a fact that statistical realities are ALWAYS done this way..
In fact, I’ll bet you that if the people on this forum had heard the same statistics regarding a different candidate that they personally favored, you/they would not be so quick to dismiss these statistics as unmeaningful, inaccurate or irrelevant.
Regardless, the fact remains, as far as donations from support from the military in the form of campaign contributions, Ron Paul did, in fact, receive a considerable amount more from active duty servicemen and women than all other candidates combined.. and that DOES say something.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/jul/23/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-members-military-have-given-him-far-/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/nov/29/ron-paul/a-military-victory-for-paul/
Once again.. despite my respect for Ron Paul.. if “this one always stumps paulbots” I must not be one.. “This one always stumps a Paulbot. Why should we care who supports Ron Paul? If the military supports Ron Paul, does that mean that his candidacy and his message speaks to them? In other words, does their support carry meaning?” YES. “If the answer is yes, then why should we ignore the support Ron Paul receives from the 9/11 truther crowd, the KKK, Stormfront, Neo-Nazis, and various nutjob conspiracy theorists? Why should we ignore the fact that the Paul campaign had Randy Gray, a KKK organizer, as its Midland County (Michigan) coordinator? ” HERE is why.. because they’re totally separate issues.. we’re supposed to support our troops.. and we’re supposed to be receptive to their will when it comes to whether they want to be at war in the middle east or whether they feel it’s a waist of a war that they don’t want or feel compelled to continue to fight.. the disproportionate amount of financial support for Ron Paul that came from active duty military personnel was a clear sign to many people who care deeply about our young men and women in the military, that these soldiers do not want to keep fighting these pointless, corporate driven wars.. and I for one, felt that supporting our troops meant that we should listen to them.. and take what they’re communicating through their active support for Ron Paul to heart. The fact that you would compare being receptive to active duty military personnel, to being receptive to the kkk etc, I find rather baffling.. As I see it, to make this comparison as if these different groups should be of equal importance when it comes to our level of receptivity regarding their political and ideological will is quite an insult to active duty armed forces. As for Randy Gray, he was not forthcoming about his history during the election and his connections to the kkk were only realized after he had already been elected to his post.. Besides, what difference… Read more »
Meh… Ronpaul is moot and thankfully not worth the time debating, particularly the vast military support myth. The parents’ basement must be a lonely place.
WTF??? Ron Paul brought up now??? Me thinks JAGC is on to something, the basement must be a very lonely place.
Ron Paul, meet irrelevance.