Re:How important is the Internet in all this? (Score 1)

Yes... and according to your polls, Ron Paul has 8% of -those- people. He also has a number of people that will show up who never have before (the same people showing up to all these straw polls who never have before). This seperates him from the other candidates, who rely entirely on the dutiful rank and file, and gaurantees him numbers better than the polls suggest. Fred Thompson would have won the San Francisco Republican Alliance straw poll by a landslide if it were attended only by those who were there due to a sense of obligation. The poll was cancelled when a bunch of Ron Paul supporters, who never, ever attend these things, showed up in numbers that would have gauranteed their candidate an easy win. The same thing will happen to some degree during the primaries. The only question is how much.