Who's Getting Your Vote?

Most embarrassing vote: This one -- but the alternative of not voting and allowing a billionaire currency speculator like George Soros to pick the next U.S. president is too dire to contemplate.

Favorite president: Chauncey Gardner, from Being There. He was even less verbose than my next favorite president, Calvin Coolidge.

Julian Sanchez

Sanchez is Reason's assistant editor.

2004 vote: Kerry would get my vote if I didn't live in the District of Columbia, but the prospect of raising his total from 94.0001 percent to 94.0002 percent isn't quite enough to lure me to the polls. Badnarik is embarrassing, and Bush is so egregiously dishonest and destructive that even electing a mannequin like Kerry is an acceptable price of ousting him.

2000 vote: I didn't vote, though (to my shame, in retrospect) I was optimistic about G.W. Bush after the convention speeches, where all that focus on Social Security reform, educational choice, and "humble" foreign policy led me to think he might do some net good.

Most embarrassing vote: I've managed to spare myself that particular breed of embarrassment by not voting. Blessed are the apathetic, for they get the better even of their political blunders.

Favorite president: Grover Cleveland, who vetoed a popular agricultural assistance bill with the phrase, "Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people."

Jack Shafer

Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate.

2004 vote: Who is the Libertarian candidate this year? That's who. Because I'm a yellow dog Libertarian.

2000 vote: Who was the Libertarian candidate that year? That's who.

Most embarrassing vote: I've never been embarrassed in the slightest by my presidential ballot.

Favorite president: Richard Nixon, because he's the gift that keeps giving.

Michael Shermer