Who's Getting Your Vote?

Reason's revealing presidential poll.

From the November 2004 issue

(Page 19 of 19)

2004 vote: John Kerry, because I think the foreign policy approach of Bush and his administration would make the world, on balance, less safe and less free, while expanding the target on Uncle Sam's back, compared to a presidency run by a flip-floppy Democrat with a Republican Congress. I think Bush needs to be fired.

2000 vote: Ralph Nader, despite covering his campaign.

Most embarrassing vote: Dukakis. I'm hoping not to feel the same way this November.

Favorite president: Lincoln, for freeing slaves, preserving the Union, and serving as a ghostly conscience to haunt the Republicans' "Southern Strategy."

Robert Anton Wilson

Wilson helped found the Guns and Dope Party (gunsanddope.com), which urges everybody to vote for himself. His best-known book is Illuminatus! (Dell), co-written with Robert Shea.

2004 vote: I'm voting for myself because I don't believe anybody else can represent me as well as I can represent myself.

2000 vote: Nobody. I sat in my tent and sulked, like Achilles.

Most embarrassing vote: In 1964 I voted for LBJ because I thought Goldwater would escalate the war in Vietnam.

Favorite president: John Adams, because he didn't trust anybody in politics, including himself.

Cathy Young

Contributing Editor Young is a columnist for the Boston Globe.

2004 vote: That's a little private, don't you think? Whichever way I answer, half my friends won't talk to me anymore. (Such are the perils of having a bipartisan social life.) Of course, I could cast a write-in vote for Xena, Warrior Princess...but that would probably piss off my friends who are Buffy fans.

2000 vote: See above.

Most embarrassing vote: Well, talk about private!

Favorite president: George Washington -- can't offend anyone with that.