Sunday, January 13, 2008

Paul supporters 'freak out' town clerk

Concord Monitor

Jennifer Call's eyes searched the office for nothing in particular. Her arms waved and her fear spilled out.

"This is where I grew up," Sutton's town clerk said yesterday. "This is my hometown, this is where my family is, and all of sudden, my name is being splashed across the internet as this horrible person. And the frightening part is, I don't know these people and they don't know me."

Call wants the nationwide army of boisterous Ron Paul supporters, believers in more conspiracy theories than Oliver Stone, to know that she's committed no crime.

Not treason, as the dozens of phone callers screamed. Not fraud, as the dozens of e-mails charged. Nothing.

Human error, by someone unknown, caused Call's office to claim Paul received zero votes from the town during Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary.

Paul actually got a whopping 31 votes.

Out of 920 cast.

Launch an investigation. Alert the media.

The mistake was corrected early the next morning, but that hardly mattered. The Paul machine, upon reading the number in print, quickly went into counteroffensive mode.

This is luck at its worst. Screw up Rudy Giuliani's vote total. Or John McCain's. Or John Edwards's. Or Bill Richardson's.

But never, ever get anything wrong when it comes to Paul and his voting tally. If you do, fans who shouted from the rooftops through the primary season will track you down and chew you out.

"Most of the these people are not rational," Call said.........

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