Staff Vote 4 Dummies (Get it??)

Matt Welch | October 29, 2008

In my column from four years ago imploring other journalistic outlets to show us who they're voting for, I boiled down our more expansive 2004 presidential survey into the responses of 13 key reason contibutors. The breakdown then:

only one certain vote apiece for Bush, Kerry and Badnarik. Two principled non-voters and two more probable non-voters (one of whom leans Badnarik); two I'll-never-tells, two undefined undecideds, and two undecideds who will either vote for Badnarik or a major-party candidate.

I was the sole loser for Kerry, BTW, though it was because "Bush needs to be fired." Go to the link to see an easily digestible list of how the 13 responded.

For the purposes of symmetry I thought I'd do the same boiling-down exercise from our just-published 2008 survey. So here goes, with 18 staffers and regular contributors this time around:

Peter Bagge: Barr; Obama if close
Ronald Bailey: Obama
Radley Balko: Barr
Drew Carey: "Anybody but McCain/Palin"
Tim Cavanaugh: Obama
Shikha Dalmia: Nobody
Brian Doherty: Never votes
Nick Gillespie: Barr, if he votes
Katherine Mangu-Ward: Never votes
Michael Moynihan: Won't vote
Charles Oliver: Won't vote
Bob Poole: McCain
Damon Root: Probably nobody, maybe Barr
Jacob Sullum: Barr
Jesse Walker: Barr
David Weigel: Obama
Matt Welch: Probably Barr
Cathy Young: Probably Barr

By my count that's three definitely for Barr, three definitely for Obama, one definitely for McCain. Five won't-votes, four probably-Barrs, one probably-nobody, and one "anybody but McCain/Palin." What does it all mean? You tell us.