Senate Leader Learns Lesson in Online Activism - The Frist POLLS!

[TacticalPeek]

By Andrew Clark

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - According to an old adage, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. But, as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist may have learned this week, on the Internet it can be hard to tell which is which.

On Wednesday, Frist's Senate Web site had posed visitors a simple, if somewhat leading, yes-or-no proposition: "Should the president's nominees to the federal bench be allowed an up or down vote on confirmation as specified in the Constitution?"

But, with the Senate locked in a marathon debate over Democrats' blocking of four of President Bush (news - web sites)'s conservative judicial nominees, the question quickly set off a online political brawl marked by allegations, firmly denied, of high-tech ballot rigging in the Tennessee Republican's office.

The online poll, a regular feature of Frist's site, normally generates limited interest. The previous day, a question about honoring veterans drew just 35 votes.

But the nominee question was spotted by a liberal weblogger, or online diarist, known as Atrios, who linked to Frist's site and asked his readers to weigh in. By early evening, over 9,000 people had responded, with some 60 percent voting "No."
Yahoo- Reuters

Stole this from Eschaton, obviously.

[hang a left]

1. They don't know that some of us were there too.

[La_Serpiente]

2. LOLOLOLOL

I am sorry, I do not wish to take credit for it, but I was the one who contributed to it by posting links to it on other blogs/websites when it only had 33 votes. The freepers caught on after twenty minutes.

Pardon my vanity

But I am sure Atrios is the reason why its popularity skyrocketed exponentially. First, he become popular because of Luskin suing him, and now he is super popular.

[xchrom]

3. i like the way you think

and how fast you act on it.

[La_Serpiente]

4. No problem

[hang a left]

5. Go ahead La Serpiente, toot away!

[La_Serpiente]

6. I think I'm done for now

[juajen]

21. I responded with a "no" vote, of course

Way to go Serp!

[Isere]

20. As one who responded

to one of the calls for action, let me tip my hat to you! This is high-level activism!

Keep it up!

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Gee golly funny

and the Leader got a lesson in humility that was fully missed by
the leader

[baby_bear]

8. Is the voting over now?

Or is there still an opportunity to contribute to the well-deserved humiliation of Frist?

s_m

[La_Serpiente]

9. All of the

Senate Websites are down. They were also down during the impeachment. I guess because there is a lot of traffic.

Edit: His website is back up. But you might as well not answer the question since it wouldn't make a difference really.

Which highly qualified nominees to the federal bench are being filibustered by Senate Democrats?

[baby_bear]

22. Uh, none.....

In fact, I have been wondering how the Democrats have allowed W* to push through some 168 federal judges! AAACCKKKKKK! The tally should have been 4 confirmed, 168 rejected! The squatter in the Oval Office has NO business appointing lifetime appointees to any federal bench. And we all know he wasn't elected.

Getting late. I'm listening to Lautenberg now. He's SOO good, a real statesman. Gosh, I wish Mondale had beaten that idiot Coleman. He is an embarrassment.

Oh dear, he comes Lindsey Graham, and he's the epitome of the Peter Principle. Never should have been elected higher than dog catcher.
I had better go to bed or else this guy will give me nightmares for sure.

d_m

[hang a left]

10. Who says they don't read DU. I bet they have full time employees

who do nothing else but monitor our boards. I betcha a buck!

[La_Serpiente]

11. Hmmm

I think they just come here for fun. Full-time? I doubt it.

[Nlighten1]

12. w3wt

Lay the smack down.

[jeter]

13. You know the thing about that poll...

was that I voted and there were some 3,000 votes counted at that point and 82% had voted no. Then, like 10 minutes later, I checked to see what the tally was and the poll was closed (for the second time) and the final tally was only 56% voting no.

I think Billy Frist fudged up the numbers. Kind of like he does with the economic numbers.

[TexasPatriot]

14. Bob Stevenson is a Liar

<snip>
Frist's spokesman, Bob Stevenson, denied on Thursday the poll had been changed to try to ensure any particular result, attributing the initial back-and-forth to efforts to foil the automatic voting programs that were being used.

"They are up there to allow people to give their honest feedback. Wherever the chips may fall, that's fine," he said.
</snip>

Bullshit. They LOST the poll and changed the wording AFTER it closed. They lost the poll BEFORE the bots got involved and they lost the poll AFTER the bots got involved. Again - if they'll go to such extremes for a worthless vanity poll - just imagine what they'll do with Diebold next year.

NEAR END


VOTING CLOSED


20 MINUTES LATER

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. They changed the QUESTION! That is so pathetic.

This is far, far worse than memogate. What Frist did was downright tampering!

[hang a left]

16. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Busted!!!!!!!!!!! You just got to send it to the paper. Ya just gotta!

[keopeli]

17. I have screen caps of several versions

and the poll was being reworded, then reset, then revamped...

they just couldn't seem to get us all to vote the way they wanted to...

Fortunately for them, I think they must have called Diebold to find out what to do about this problem.

Early version


Later version


Interesting how the vote tally seemed to be going DOWN!

Oh, brother. There's no reasoning with these people.

[TexasPatriot]

18. The truly scary thing

is that there are hundreds of people who can capture screenshots of this...

all they have to do is go up to File -> work offline and then go to
http://frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Home.Home&...
in their cache

it'll pop right up
screenshot it, send it to everyone... even print it out so there's a PRINTED COPY in case someone wants a recount.

ah well, we've always been at war with East Asia, right?

[stewert]

19. Paint Shop Pro Too......

You can also do screen captures in 2 seconds if you have paint shop pro, a
5 year old can do it.

I just reported it to buzzflash.com.

Too bad mediawhoresonline is on vacation.