Who's getting your vote? reason's revealing presidential poll

Reason, Nov, 2004

VOTING FOR PRESIDENT IS A LOT LIKE SEX--and not just because it takes place once every four years in the solitude of a semi-private booth. Both are intensely personal activities that nonetheless can have profound public consequences. We might add that both often involve drug-and-alcohol-fueled delusions and morning-after feelings of guilt, shame, and recrimination.

As Campaign 2004 entered its home stretch, we asked a variety of policy wonks, journalists, thinkers, and other public figures in the reason universe to reveal for whom they were voting this fall, for whom they pulled the lever last time around, their most embarrassing presidential vote, and their favorite president of all time. Their answers, as of late August, follow.

--The Editors

PETER BAGGE

Contributing Editor Bagge is best known as author of the alternative comic book Hate.

2004 vote: If it looks like my home state could go either way by Election Day, I'll vote for John Kerry. Otherwise I'll vote for the Libertarian Party's candidate, Michael Badnarik. That's been my M.O. every election year, since the Democratic candidate usually strikes me as the lesser of two evils (if not by much).

2000 vote: Harry Browne.

Most embarrassing vote: Every time I've voted for a major-party candidate I've felt embarrassed. I vaguely recall voting in '88 for Michael Dukakis, whose only positive attribute was that his last name wasn't Bush (as is the case with John F. Kerry).

Favorite president: George Washington, for actually refusing to assume as much power as he could have gotten away with. I can't think offhand of another president that could be said about.

RONALD BAILEY

Bailey is reason's science correspondent.

2004 vote: I'm undecided between Republican George W. Bush and Libertarian Michael Badnarik. Bush has been a great disappointment. But Kerry will be even worse--raising taxes, overregulating, and socializing more of medicine. What to do?

2000 vote: George W. Bush. I couldn't possibly have voted for Gore since he dislikes me personally. Besides, I was presciently worried (you can ask my wife) about a popular vote/electoral vote mismatch.

Most embarrassing vote: George McGovern, 1972. I was 18 and thought I was a socialist.

Favorite president: George Washington. The man spurned being made king and stepped peacefully down from office.

JOHN PERRY BARLOW

Barlow is a songwriter for the Grateful Dead and other bands, the co-founder and vice chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a Berkman Fellow at Harvard Law School.

2004 vote: I'm voting for John Kerry, though with little enthusiasm. This is only because I would prefer almost anything to another four years of George W. Bush. I don't believe the Constitution, the economy, or the environment can endure another Bush administration without sustaining almost irreparable damage.

2000 vote: John Hagelin of the Natural Law Party. I discovered, in the voting booth, that a friend of mine was his vice presidential candidate. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Bush, Gore, or Nader and had intended to cast no presidential vote.

Most embarrassing vote: I'm embarrassed for my country that in my entire voting life, there has never been a major-party candidate whom I felt I could vote for. All of my presidential votes, whether for George Wallace, Dick Gregory, or John Hagelin, have been protest votes.

Favorite president: Jefferson, who defined, in his works and in his person, just about everything I love about America.

JAMES BOVARD

Bovard is author of The Bush Betrayal (Palgrave Macmillan) and seven other books.

2004 vote: I will probably vote for Badnarik, the Libertarian Party candidate. Both of the major-party candidates brazenly flaunt their contempt for the U.S. Constitution. Regardless of who wins in November, the U.S. likely will have a lousy president for the next four years.

2000 vote: I abstained.

Most embarrassing vote: I voted for Gerald Ford in 1976. He was not that embarrassing, compared to Jimmy Carter. And compared to George W. Bush, Ford was verbally graceful.

Favorite president: It might be a coin toss between Washington and Jefferson. Washington set a magnificent example of self-restraint, protecting the new nation from both his own power lust and unnecessary wars (despite foolish popular demands). Jefferson masterfully reined in the federal government from the tyrannical Alien and Sedition Act persecutions that John Adams launched.

STEWART BRAND

Brand is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Long Now Foundation. He is the author of, among other books, The Media Lab (Viking) and How Buildings Learn (Penguin).

2004 vote: Kerry. He's knowledgeable enough and appears to do well in crunches. He has the skills and connections to begin to undo the damage of the Bush years. He's highly ambitious, which is fine with me. And he personally killed a man who was trying to kill him and his crew. You could also say he personally attacked a government that was trying to kill his generation. Those actions take sand. Too bad they won't come up in the debates.