Not Breaking News: Note to Top of the Ticket Readers

Attention Top of the Ticket readers (especially Ron Paul supporters):

Due to the growing popularity of the Top of the Ticket blog and its welcome and somewhat overdue inclusion into the Internet area now routinely scanned by the Web's independent search engines, there has been in the last several hours a sudden appearance of many older items from this blog on the web.

These are not re-postings, as easy as that would make our work for today. And as perfectly as that would fit into the conspiratorial suspicions of some political partisans who've left comments today. This is quite simply the discovery today by the search engines of several hundred items written over the past five months since we opened this blog dialogue on June 11.

All of the comments have been posted, albeit on items that are many weeks old. They can be accessed through the subject category words in the right-hand column of this blog. (There's even a separate subject line for Ron Paul, who is allegedly ignored so much by the media.)

We heartily welcome all of our new readers and hope you will make this unusual and eclectic political blog a regular part of your browsing day, along with this vibrant, constantly changing LATimes.com website.

There are two or three of us regularly posting political items here -- one from the East Coast and one from the West. So we span a lot of country as well as several time zones through each long blogging day. You never know what you'll find here at all hours.

Bookmark this: www.LATimes.com/TopoftheTicket

And keep on reading and leaving those comments. This is intended as a place for fans of politics written by fans of politics.

--Andrew Malcolm and Don Frederick

Comments

[Scott McDonnell]

Please not, the links to this article are not working in the old articles popping up, so people getting upset with re-posting old articles are not seeing your explanation for why it is happening.

Was this a natural occuring situation (I had read these articles fresh when they came out) or are they result of someone google-bombing to push these negative stories up to the top of the pile?

Perhaps this could be looked into and add to your update.

Thanks for tolerating us, but just wanted to be sure you didn't think people were ignoring your explanation... again, the link isn't working.

(We were not scanned by Google search engines until today. When they started, they scanned all 700+ existing blog articles as new--new to the search engines but old to blog readers. Each item has its original date of publication.
I believe the links have been fixed but just in case the note will remain at the top of the blog homepage for some days at: www.LATimes.com/TopoftheTicket
The item's individual link should be: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/11/not-breaking--1.html
Hope this helps.

[Fraser Atkinson]

You state, "There's even a separate subject line for Ron Paul, who is allegedly ignored so much by the media." "allegedly ignored"???

Below is a video clip of Carol Costello covering this issue on CNN. VMS tracking found that mainstream media mentioned Ron Paul's name just 4,695 times from August, 2006 to August, 2007 and John McCain's name 95,005 times during the same period.

Also, virtually every time Ron Paul's name is mentioned a derogatory adjective is added before his name such as "dark horse", "long shot", "quirky", "flaky", "quixotic", etc. These adjectives are always the opinion of the media and serve no purpose that to discredit Ron Paul with the viewers.

Why is this?

Ron Paul has 70,000 donors. He will raise more money from non-lobbiests and non-corporate Americans than all other Republican candidates combined in the 4th quarter. That makes him the hands down front runner according to the people that should really count. Americans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMBc6C1VUTE

[Richard B]

99.99% of us supporters of Dr. Paul figured this out on our own, but thanks for clarifying this for the other 0.01%

When I saw the "new" posts earlier today, I was immediately struck by the condescending language used to describe Dr. Paul's supporters, in contrast to the recent trend of being more polite and respectful.

However, as a long-time subscriber to the print LA Times, I was not actually all-that surprised by the biased language.

Anyone interested in Dr. Paul's message of Liberty and the Rule of Law can learn more at ronpaul2008.com (Don't count on the L.A. Times printing any real news about the campaign anytime soon).

[Tannim]

If they're not reposts, then why, when I Google Ron Paul for news in teh past day only do they pop up from two months ago? Sounds to mje like someone tweaked the search date tags somewhere to increase hit counts for some reason...cheesy move to boost hits if you ask me.

(Because until today Google search engines did not scan this blog. Then when they started, they scanned everything we've ever written as if it was today. We're good, but we couldn't write 728 items since noon.)

[Scott McDonnell]

"(We were not scanned by Google search engines until today. When they started, they scanned all 728 exizting blog articles as new--new to the search engines but old to blog readers. Each item has its original date of publication.)"

Please forgive me for being blunt, but you are being dishonest. Probably not intentionally, but you are. I REPEAT: I HAVE read these articles in the past, and I found them through google news, the same as they are being found today. The ONLY logical answer is someone is google-bombing them up to the top somehow.

If you had nothing to do with it, you might want to look into the accuracy of your claim, because most of the people landing here ALSO read these articles months ago, and they ALSO found them through goole news. SO you don't end up looking very honest.

In fact, there has been burst of the Ron Paul/Guiliani ferry confrontation all over the blogs today. And it has NOTHING to do with your article. Someone is taking advantage of the extra attention to Ron Paul and new people looking into him to make sure they find this (what they see as) negative article.

I give you the benefit of the doubt, but not by much. Not after some of the articles you have posted in the past. Why you keep doing this when it backfires every time is beyond me. Maybe you are really Ron Paul supporters?

(Of course, you've read them in the past. They were published here in the past on the dates they each carry. They were also published--and scanned--in other Tribune company blogs. From this blog, there were 700+ items suddenly scanned today as if they were new, 34 of them involving Paul. So he's running around 5% here too.)

[Paul]

Thanks for the clarification. I enjoy many of your articles, and plan to continue to check in regularly. I really think Dr. Paul will suprise many on election day, as he has already with his fundraising. Many, many Americans are tired of politics as usual, tired of overbearing, wasteful government, and tired of a foreign policy philosophy based on pre-emptive war or the threat of it. Also, there are still many traditional goldwater, reagan republicans and libertarians. Traditional polls don't sample those who have only recently become interested in politics, young people voting for the first time, those without landlines, or independents and liberals willing to switch parties to get behind a good candidate. All of these are strong areas of support for paul. In fact, many polls mainly sample the 6% of registered republicans who actually voted in the last primary, when Bush was the incumbent -- mostly hard core Bush supporters, and not anything close to a representative group. In general, traditional polls with set databases react poorly to political change. Perhaps you could look into this, or write an article on it if you have time :)

Regards,
Paul

[Scott McDonnell]

"(Of course, you've read them in the past. They were published here in the past on the dates they each carry. They were also published--and scanned--in other Tribune company blogs. From this blog, there were 700+ items suddenly scanned today as if they were new, 34 of them involving Paul. So he's running around 5% here too.)"

Now THAT explanation makes more sense. They were scanned previously, but for some reason, they were scanned again today as new? Am I understanding that correctly?

If so, my apologies.

(Yes, they were all scanned today as "new" because Google added this blog to its regular search mechanism today as a "new" blog to scan even though we are five months old and it picked up the entire blog archive as "new," new to the scanners but old to readers.)

[Rudy08Man]

Rudy will kill the terrorists, rape their wives, and eat their children. Figuratively speaking, of course. Ron Paul should be thrown in Gitmo for being an Al Qaeda sympathizer. That I mean for real. His conduct has been nothing short of treasonous during this time of war. Huckabee and Romney are not nearly as strong and courageous as America's Mayor, the hero of 9/11.

[John]

Rudy08Man you are a fool. Don't give me that tired, 9/11 hero, America's mayor hogwash. The mayor of my town's name is Mel, not Rudy. It just so happened that 9/11 happened while Rudy was mayor. That's your reason for voting for him. That sounds like a sympathy vote, which is sad. What does 9/11 occuring while he was in office have ANYTHING to do with him being a good candidate for president? And about throwing Ron Paul in Gitmo for being an Al Qaeda sympathizer...you sound like George W Bush. And the thought of that just made me throw up in my own mouth a little bit.

so go on with your global warmongering. go "rape the terrorists wives and eat their children" you fascist shill.

ps -
ronpaul2008.com

(C'mon, folks, enough with the name-calling. Ron Paul's folks ought to be able to make strong arguments on points and let's not threaten.)

[Hephaistos Klutometis]

"There's even a separate subject line for Ron Paul, who is allegedly ignored so much by the media."

So maybe you guys have progressed to the second or third stage of the Ghandian quartet.