We have a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll that's shaking up the Republican presidential race, since Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead.

But it's also shaking up Ron Paul's legions of Internet supporters--because he fared so poorly at just 4 percent of the vote. Because his numbers were so low I didn't mention Paul in my Wall Street Journal story on the poll. For the same reason, I didn't mention Democrats Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich, who also drew 4 percent.

That hasn't stopped a flood of irate emails from outraged Paul-iacs as I mentioned yesterday, who claim I am somehow discriminating against him and exercising big media control of the process as a result. Hilariously, someone named Mick Russom wrote to say "Thomas Nast would draw YOU as one of the crooked wretches in Tammany Hall." I wish!

Mick and other Paul supporters need to wake up and smell the coffee. Ron Paul is making cogent political arguments and raising lots of money. But he is not winning. As a matter of fact, he's not close to winning.

You say national polls are meaningless? Fine. And what about the early states? A quick scan of the realclearpolitics.com web site, which has an authoritative compilation of recent polls, shows he's below 10 percent in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida.

And guess what? for a candidate who demonstrates broad appeal on the stump, low numbers like that can CHANGE. It happened for Mike Huckabee--and not because of the national press lavishing attention on him.

So instead of complaining, Ron Paul's Internet army might spend its time more usefully by trying to persuade friends and neighbors to support him.

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