Breaking Down the Reason Staff's Vote Disclosures From 2012, 2008, and 2004
Yesterday, we released our quadrennial survey of which presidential candidate Reason staffers, contributors, and other small-l libertarians plan to vote for. Of the 28 people surveyed, 17 said they'll be voting for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson, two others said they'll probably vote for Johnson, eight said they won't be voting, and one declined to disclose.
After we conducted these exercises in 2008 and 2004, I winnowed each list down to just Reason staffers, contributing editors, regular contributors, and they'll-always-be-one-of-us emeriti, so that readers can most accurately target their ire, praise, and ridicule at our institution (which, amazingly, is the only journalistic outfit of any size this year to actually trust readers enough to show them our vote; we're still waiting on Slate).
For ease-of-use, and to see whether there is some interesting movement in voter sentiment, I will put the three elections' Reason-centric disclosures in one blog post below. Some of who were originally described as leaners or undecided in 2004 and 2008 have for these purposes been assigned to the candidates we later learned they voted for. Here goes:
2012:
25 total Reasonoids
15 Gary Johnson (with 2 leaning)
8 nobody/not voting
2008:
18 total Reasonoids
7 nobody/not voting
5 Bob Barr (w/ 1 leaning)
3 Barack Obama
1 John McCain
1 anybody-but-McCain
2004:
13 total Reasonoids
3 Michael Badnarik
2 George W. Bush
2 John Kerry
2 undecided
2 nobody/not voting
2 none of your business
Conclusions? Draw your own in the comments. Then ask your other favorite journalistic institutions why their belief in transparency doesn't extend to themselves.
