There were undoubtedly a lot of people voting yesterday (November 6th) who didn't like either President Obama or Mitt Romney -- and one option they had was to write in their own candidate. What motivates people who write in candidates? Three years ago, the New York Times took a look at the just-released list of the names more than 800 of New York City's 2.6 million voters in the previous year's 2008 presidential election between then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain wrote in. The Times was looking for clues to if the write-in voters were just being funny, were disaffected, or really supported the person they wrote in. Here are some of the names that were written in:
- More than 250 for Hillary Clinton, who was Obama's fierce competitor in that year's Democratic primary
- NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg-- 34 votes
- Al Gore-- 10 votes
- Colin Powell-- 6 votes
- Comedian Stephen Colbert-- 3 votes
- Russian leader Vladimir Putin-- 2 votes
- Arnold Schwarzenegger-- 1 vote
- Bill Clinton-- 1 vote
- Dr. Joyce Brothers-- 1 vote
- Oprah Winfrey-- 1 vote
- Paris Hilton-- 1 vote
- The very dead Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt-- 1 vote each
- And one for John McCain -- even though he was on the ballot -- that said, "John McCain of 2000 Not 2008 (Totally different people.)"
