Poll Stuffers Go Cruise'n

According to jossip.com, A week ago yesterday, Parade sent out a press release like any other, hoping to generate a little buzz for its website, which polled readers on their thoughts about Tom Cruise. We saw the same shocking statistic that Parade's editors did;

• 84 % of of the 5,200 votes said the media were to blame for Cruise's "difficult year". Sounded a little bit odd to us, too. While nobody is making the outright claim Cruise or the Church of Scientology rigged the poll, Parade says there was plenty of suspicious behavior, reported Page Six this morning. Then Parade followed up with Jossip directly, relaying this:

Parade.com conducted an online poll asking readers whether they thought Tom Cruise was responsible for his difficult year or whether it was the media's fault. We were surprised when 84% of respondents said the media was to blame for his tough year and that Cruise did NOT bring his image problems on himself.

We at Parade found this a little bit fishy - so we did some investigating. We found out more than 14,000 (of the 18,000+ votes) that came in, were cast from only 10 computers! Furthermore, there was one computer responsible for nearly 8,400 votes alone, all blaming the media for Tom's troubles. We also discovered that at least two other machines were the sources of inordinate numbers of votes.

It seems these folks (whoever they may be) resorted to extraordinary measures to try to portray Tom in a positive light for the Parade.com survey. There is even a chance they wrote a special "bot" program for the sole purpose of skewing the results, rather than casting the votes by hand on a computer. Sounds like a pretty devoted group of people, don't you think?

Over at FoxNews, they added:
Collado told FOXNews.com that people can "draw their own conclusions" as to who is behind the scam. "We really don't know; there's no way to determine that," she said. Cruise spokesman Paul Bloch told the New York Post's Page Six gossip column, which broke the story on Tuesday, "I know nothing about the poll, so we have nothing to comment on."

And from cultnews.com this epilogue:
So if it sounds like Scientologists, looks like Scientologists and smells (figuratively speaking) like Scientologists, then it just might be Scientologists that helped out their fellow believer Tom Cruise. Is Scientology's bunny running down? After all, the actor is Scientology’s “Top Gun,” and the organization must be concerned about one of its most important assets. Cruise often acts like a never ending “Eveready Energizer Bunny” promoting the controversial church at almost any opportunity, whether its curing drug addicts or dyslexia Cruise’s answer is almost always Scientology. But it seems Tom Cruise might a falling star.

• In one poll the 43-year-old actor was “voted the person people would least like to go camping overnight with” below Saddam Hussein, reported China Daily.
• He also beat Paris Hilton and Bobby Brown for the top spot in a Los Angeles Times poll as the “Tackiest Star” of 2005 reported Hollywood.com.
• Cruise picked up the title ”most irritating actor in movies” in a vote taken by Britain’s Empire Magazine.
• Not long ago the actor also won two not so coveted Razzies. A silver gong for “the most tiresome tabloid target” and he got the gold for ”unashamed romancing” reported the BBC News.

With such increasing negatives. Scientology may be sweating a bit. As anyone in advertising knows likeability makes a good spokesperson. That is, people don’t buy products from someone they don’t like. Just ask any sports star that lost an endorsement deal after some personal or professional scandal.
So if people don’t like Tom Cruise how can he successfully sell Scientology? Enter the spammers and bots to make him look like a victim by deliberately skewing a poll.