That time Paul supporters made their own Iowa Straw Poll …

September 8, 2015 1:00 pm·

The Ron/Rand Paul campaign’s love affair with polls is legendary. They’ll quote polls that no one else even knows exist, especially if they show a Paul out front, or “gaining momentum” in the field.

They also loved the Iowa Straw Poll, because they’re really good at getting people to show up in huge numbers, except on Caucus Night. So, when the Republican Party of Iowa decided to end the quadrennial event this year, the Rand Paul campaign’s supporters were perhaps among the most heartbroken.

But not anymore.

A group led by a key Paul backer, Max Linn — a former Reform Party candidate for Governor of Maine — was formed prior to the 2014 General Election for the purpose of pushing for more openness in government. It was called the We Vote Project. More recently, the group has changed its focus to congressional term limits and now goes by the name America’s Term Limits Campaign.

But, the group still has ties to the Paul campaign. So, it recently launched its own online “Iowa Straw Poll,” which is open to both Republicans and Democrats (or those who will vote as such at the Iowa Caucuses in February). And, despite languishing in the low single digits in most national and statewide GOP presidential polls — including a less-than-3-percent showing in Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s State Fair Straw Poll — Rand Paul is leading in the results with more than 60 percent of the vote (the site is still open for voting).

Making it up as you go along is kind of how a certain group of fuzzy characters seems to get on with life, so The .Gif Shop staff immediately went to work.

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Once the poll was up and a substantial number of votes were cast for Rand Paul, his supporters be like …

And like …

And, in response to criticism that the poll was only created to give Paul supporters something to talk about, the authors of the website be like …