I find this to be a bit bizarre. Remember way back when, Alan Colmes announced he was leaving Fox's Hannity And Colmes for a pasture less fertilized by Hannity, presumably? There was a brief period of speculation as to what might happen. TVNewser, on November 20th, put up a poll, querying readers as to who they thought should take Colmes' place, if anybody. Peter Feld strongly endorsed a woman named Kirsten Powers. I thought Feld made a good case and climbed aboard that bandwagon myself. Of course, it felt like a moot point days later when Brian Stetler reported that Hannity was going to make a solo go of the show. But there was, critically, no word from Fox.
Today, TVNewser made note of the fact that Hannity's website had been linking to their poll, and since the time they started directing users to it, Kirsten Powers' lead in the poll had shrunk to a mere forty votes. In second place, "Hannity Solo." Minutes after TVNewser made note, however, the link to the poll was scrubbed from Hannity's website.
The question is, what on earth is going on here? Why would Hannity care about another website's user poll? Is it really important that the future decision regarding Colmes' replacement be reflected in the recorded opinions of TVNewser readers? And isn't Mediabistro still using the same grade-school level polling widget that they've used on FishbowlDC's "Hottest People In Media" Contest? Because if they are, someone should get a message to Hannity's online people that those polls are crazy hackable.