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

2000 vote: Even though I ran as a write-in candidate myself, I wound up voting for Nader because I thought he gave such rousing and impressive speeches. I wouldn't actually want him to be president though. He's way too puritanical. Did anybody notice that he joined in on the Janet Jackson nipple crisis? Instead of objecting from a religious point of view, he objects from the view that corporate media are "spewing filth" into our environment. The health fascists are everywhere.

Most embarrassing vote: Ralph Nader in 2000. First of all, some other people actually voted for me. My insincerity is justifiable only in a dadaist context, which I therefore proclaim. And secondly, it encouraged Nader, who is now clearly addicted to the run.

Favorite president: It's difficult to rate the quality of an 18th-century president's decisions at this distance, but I choose Thomas Jefferson for eloquently elucidating many of the ideas and attitudes of the Age of Reason.

BRADLEY A. SMITH

Smith is chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

2004 vote: That's one an election commissioner better not answer; we're not supposed to engage in partisan activities.

2000 vote: I don't want to answer that one either.

Most embarrassing vote: I'm too smart to cast embarrassing ballots.

Favorite president: Warren G. Harding; he's a vastly underrated president and a man of great ordinary decency.

VERNON SMITH

Smith, the 2002 Nobel Prize winner in economics, was born and raised in Kansas and inspired to learn by a farmer-teacher in a one-room country schoolhouse.

2004 vote: I am not voting for Kerry. Yet to be decided is whether I will vote for Bush or for neither.

2000 vote: Bush.

Most embarrassing vote: Many of the presidents were embarrassments, but not for me as a voter, because I always think of myself as voting against the other one. This policy led me to vote "for" Humphrey, Nixon, and others, but I saw myself as choosing negatively.

Favorite president: Eisenhower, for whom the affairs of state could always await another round of golf--for his not wanting to "get bogged down in a land war in Asia," and his concern about the military-industrial complex, which generalizes to other complexes like the Treasury-investment-banking complex.

ANDREW SULLIVAN

Sullivan, a senior editor at The New Republic, blogs at andrewsullivan.com.

2004 vote: I can't vote because I'm not a citizen. So I can only "support" candidates, and I'm not supporting anyone in this election.

2000 choice: Bush.

Most embarrassing choice: I'm unembarrassed by all my choices.

Favorite president: Lincoln, of course. He saved the Union.

JACOB SULLUM

Senior Editor Sullum is a syndicated columnist and author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher Penguin).

2004 vote: The thought of choosing between Bush and Kerry, or casting another pathetic protest vote for the Libertarian candidate, is so depressing that I probably won't be motivated to visit my local polling place this year. I'd like to see Bush lose, but without Kerry winning. Much as I disliked him when he was in office, Clinton is looking better and better to me in retrospect.