Slate Staff Prefer Obama Over McCain By 55-1 Margin
Obama Carries the Great State of SlateToday, Slate's staff and contributors reveal how they're voting in next week's presidential election. This continues a tradition we began in 2000 and repeated in 2004. It will come as little surprise to many of our readers—and certainly as no surprise to Sarah "Media Elite" Palin—that Barack Obama won Slate in a landslide. In capturing 55 of our 57 votes, with 1 to McCain and 1 to Libertarian Bob Barr, Obama won an even bigger Slate majority than Al Gore in 2000 (29 of 37 votes) or John Kerry in 2004 (46 of 52 votes). Incidentally, this is a voluntary project: Our staff and contributors can reveal how they voted, but they are not required to.
My two predecessors as Slate's editor, Michael Kinsley and Jacob Weisberg, each wrote articles explaining why we reveal our votes. I don't have anything to add to their eloquent arguments, so please read Kinsley's 2000 piece here (mentally subbing "McCain" for "Bush" and "Obama" for "Gore"), and Weisberg's 2004 piece here ("McCain" for "Bush" and "Obama" for "Kerry").
Why did Obama win the swing state of Slate? Like Mike and Jacob before me, I don't think a candidate's Slate victory reflects a bias that has corrupted the magazine during the campaign. There are obvious reasons why Slate would lean heavily toward Obama: Most of our staff and contributors live in extremely Democratic cities on the East and West Coast. (It's worth noting that our lone McCain voter, Deputy Managing Editor Rachael Larimore, lives in Ohio.) Slate's voters tend to skew young, and all polls show younger voters favoring the Democrat. Also, a significant number of former Slate contributors, among them Austan Goolsbee, Jason Furman, and Phil Carter, are now advising Obama. It's understandable that our affection for them and respect for their views may be accruing to Obama. (He's taking Jason and Austan's advice on the economy? Then he must be pretty smart.) And, finally, we are journalists, and, to quote Kinsley:
Why did Obama win the swing state of Slate? Like Mike and Jacob before me, I don't think a candidate's Slate victory reflects a bias that has corrupted the magazine during the campaign. There are obvious reasons why Slate would lean heavily toward Obama: Most of our staff and contributors live in extremely Democratic cities on the East and West Coast. (It's worth noting that our lone McCain voter, Deputy Managing Editor Rachael Larimore, lives in Ohio.) Slate's voters tend to skew young, and all polls show younger voters favoring the Democrat. Also, a significant number of former Slate contributors, among them Austan Goolsbee, Jason Furman, and Phil Carter, are now advising Obama. It's understandable that our affection for them and respect for their views may be accruing to Obama. (He's taking Jason and Austan's advice on the economy? Then he must be pretty smart.) And, finally, we are journalists, and, to quote Kinsley:
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 5:20 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home