Biggest Blowhard? Al Franken!!

I always figured The Brazosport News readership trended toward the right, but ... whoa.

Al Franken has won the title of Biggest Blowhard in Banjo's Mini-Poll!

OK, it's not exactly a scientific poll. In other words, it's bullcrap.

This I realized a few days ago when I began looking at some of the data. See, in these Bravenet Mini Polls, you receive an email for each vote that is cast. The email shows you the Internet Provider address of each voter. And, well, let's just say some of you voted repeatedly for, yes, Al Franken.

This amused me. That your hatred, nay, your revulsion, of Al Franken would drive some of you to plug in to the poll and cast several votes repeatedly over a number of days somehow struck me as funny ... and a bit obsessive ... but mostly funny.

Then my amusement turned to indignation. How can anyone, I thought, consider Al Franken a bigger blowhard than, say, Sean Hannity? (Or O'Reilly, for that matter.) I mean, at least Mr. Franken is funny -- sometimes. OK, he's not so funny on the radio, but he's not bad on Letterman. And, he may be the next United States senator from Minnesota. Maybe.

At that point, I banned a certain IP address that kept voting for Franken, and cast a couple extra votes of my own for Hannity (or "Vanity," as Michael Savage calls him on the radio.) "Man, I've gotta even this up," I said to myself, punching in a vote for Vanity.

My indignation quickly turned again to amusement, amusement at myself, for voting more than once in my own poll! So, it's come to this, I told myself. This is pathetic. Unprofessional! Unethical!! And a bit obsessive/compulsive ... but mostly pathetic, and sad. Then I took 2 Benadryl and went to bed.

I awoke the next day (today), to check the figures, so here they are...

Biggest Bloward:
Al Franken -- 40 votes, 31 percent.
Rush Limbaugh -- 27 votes, 21 percent.
Chris Matthews -- 17 votes, 13 percent.
Bill O'Reilly -- 16 votes, 13 percent.
Sean Hannity -- 14 votes, 11 percent.
Tucker Carlson -- 5 votes, 4 percent.
Bill Moyers -- 5 votes, 4 percent.
Michael Savage -- 2 votes, 2 percent.
Janeane Garafalo -- 1 vote, 1 percent.
Joe Scarborough -- 0

By the way, the total votes cast (128) set a record for most votes in Banjo's Mini Poll. The previous top-voting poll question concerned whether or not to trade Roger Clemens. Now there's a new poll up, but since it's not political, I doubt it will drive many of you to vote repeatedly. If you want to, though, go ahead and vote 100 times. I DON'T CARE.