March Madness: Upsets Galore As Paul Ousts Romney; Jindal And Huck Lose; Round 3 Awaits

Round 2 of my March Madness contest -- the 2012 Republican presidential nomination -- has ended, and there are some major surprises to report.

First, we'll go over the results. Analysis will follow. And don't forget to vote in Round 3.

And the headline is that both No. 1 seeds -- Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney -- were soundly defeated, and both by candidates seeded sixth. Palin, the governor of Alaska, was defeated by Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, 58 percent to 41 percent. Total votes cast in that matchup were nearly 135,000. A bigger jolt was the loss by Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, who got walloped by Texas congressman Ron Paul, 70-29 percent. Nearly 1.4 million votes were cast -- a disproportionate number, compared with the other contests -- and again, it's something that will be addressed later in this posting.

Two other shockers came when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a third seed, lost to Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, seeded eighth, by a 61-38 percent vote. More than 110,000 votes in that one. And in a face-off between two Southern governors, Florida's Charlie Crist, a fourth seed, ousted Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, rated No. 2; nearly 50,000 votes were cast in that one.

Meanwhile, three other results had a total of between 46,000 and 48,000 votes. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (No. 7) beat ex-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (No. 5) 57-42; Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (No. 2) neutered Newt Gingrich (No. 4) 54-45; and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (No. 7) ousted Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas (No. 12) 55-44. Another contest that got considerably more votes was the one in which South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (No. 3) defeated former eBay exec Meg Whitman (No. 9) by 60-39 percent. More than 77,000 votes were cast.

Those are the results, as per the votes that came in. My picks, of course, were vastly different. I had Romney beating Paul, Palin over Pence, Jindal over Crist, Huckabee over DeMint. And I'm sticking with them.

But what to make of the results? One point four million votes in Paul vs. Romney?

A lot of readers have theories. And a lot have to do with ballot-stuffing by the Ron Paul folks.

Now, in fairness, I never said "only one vote per person." So no "rules" were violated, other than fair play.

Here's a sample of e-mails from those complaining about the tactics of the Paul supporters.

A reader from Japan wrote: "Here is a link to a Ron Paul supporter Web site where they are discussing how to ruin your poll by cheating and voting multiple times." Indeed, the headline at this link at DailyPaul.com reads, "NPR Poll -- Ron Paul LOSING to Mitt Romney. You know what to do!"

A reader from Mead, Colo., wrote: "The Ron Paul crowd is using scripts to vote thousands of times in the March Madness poll. Here are the instructions they posted at ronpaulforums.com. I took a snapshot as proof."

A reader from Storrs, Conn.: "I was really excited about who was going to win your pool, but it's clear that the Ron Paul people are rigging the process. Not only are they stuffing the ballot, but they are voting to eliminate the rest of the competition: Huckabee and Palin, for example. Your poll is now worthless."

And another reader from Texas adds, "It's pretty obvious at this point that Ron Paul will win the entire bracket you've set up for the 2012 Republican race. This poll has clearly been overrun by Ron Paulians. They excel at this sort of thing. Unfortunately for Paul they don't do much more than online stuff and that's why he was never any threat in any of the primaries last year."

I'm of two minds when it comes to this. Let's face it, a "March Madness" pool in March of 2009 about the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is either silly or, as I like to put it, fun. If the Ron Paul people are excited enough to delete computer cookies so they can vote multiple times, well, so what. Can a tainted process make a meaningless poll even more meaningless?

(UPDATE: As you can tell from the comments attached below, accusations of cheating and "fixing" the results are directed at more than one candidate. While my e-mails were indeed all aimed at Paul supporters -- I printed them not out of personal "bias" but because that's what I was hearing -- it seems clear that no one candidate is solely responsible for ballot stuffing. It apparently was going on by supporters of several candidates -- or at least more than one. Also, in answer to several e-mail questions, the "Ken Rudin Picks" page displays bracket results as I think they would be in the 2012 primaries -- or at least as I see it in March of 2009. Boy, whoever called it "Madness" was certainly on the mark!)

In any event, it's time to vote in Round 3. And let me hear from you about what you think of the process so far.