Kash

Exley

Kash

I vote Exley! This contest has become ridiculous. Bring back Exley!

None of the above.

With the first dozen or so votes in, Marin is losing in a landslide. Let's keep that trend up, shall we?

Sophist had the best week

None of the above. This is a joke.

Exley. At least make an other button on the poll.

Can you add a "None of the Above" option? Seriously. I will remove my bookmark for this site if any of these contestants are chosen. I'm sure they're fine people, but they're really bad at this.

Throw out this batch.

Kashmir Hill

Sophist is the best to take out Marin...

Sophist is the best to take out Marin...

I switched my vote from Marin to Sophist. Not that Sophist is even close to decent. At least the Alex fervor seems to have died. That would have been the worst choice of them all.

Marinheads, you may succeed in keeping her in it for a while, but she's not going to win. Go back to Narnia.

I am tempted to vote F&D just to get Alex out of here.

Sophist had a good week. Marin had a solid first week...slipped a little this week, but should still be in the running.
Alex and F&D have shown me nothing so far.

None of the above. Horrible, horrible stuff all around.

I switched my vote from Sophist to Alex in the hopes of getting Marin out. If Alex starts lagging behine F&D, I'll switch again. Come on people -- let's make a concerted effort to get rid of Marin this week.

frolic! frolic! frolic!

#20, you're not going to get rid of Marin until the last week. It's entirely predictable that she'll finish second, regardless of who finishes first. Let's at least get rid of Alex now.

Put Alex & Sophist in the next round! Let Marin as well as F&D fall out!

none of the above

Get F&D out now. She has the potential to come on strong late in the game and win. Marin is worthless and will continue to be worthless.

#25 - If you think F&D has the potential to come on strong and prove to be the best (of this collection of losers), then why do you want her off? Are you really that attached to one of the other crappy contestants?

Oh yeah baby, Sophist has been the most consistent performer.

SOPHIST! SOPHIST! SOPHIST!

All bad. Sophist is terrible. Marin is abhorrent. Alex has sh*t the bed this week. F&D is nothing special. Time to pick the lesser of four evils.

/ leaves ATTTL permanently

/ shoots self

Althouse for EIC!

They really should have a poll where you vote on which two should leave rather than on who you like the best. I bet Marin and F&D would get the most votes if you voted that way.

Sophist is definitely going to win the competition, though. Marin's ringer voters will be able to keep her in the competion past this round, unless F&D's supporters rally together and vote for Alex instead in order to get him up above Marin.

love the mccain ad on the left with the split screen ahmedinejad and obama pix. lat, i know you're a republican but how about some self-control here?

Who keeps on voting for Marin? She really is the worst writer in this competition.

White & Case Los Angeles just cancelled Michigan.

K.R.E.A.M.

Kash Rules Everything Around Me

30: hello, if f&d's voters back alex instead of her in order to put alex above marin, all that means is that f&d will be out instead of alex! (and, f&d is ahead of alex by a good margin any way.)

the only way your scenario works is if some of SOPHIST's supporters back f&d AND alex in order to get BOTH of them up above marin. even then, there might not be enough votes to go around in order to pull it off.

Alex! Alex! Alex! AND - bring back Exley!

RETRACTION

Sorry, thought we were voting off 1 this week, not 2.

35

#20 - You're an A--hole. Really? Just vote for who you want to win. Stop strategizing like a loser. No one is going to listen to you.

Kash for EIC.
34 for Second-in-Command

Alex's supporters appear to be a more annoying and vocal (and smaller) minority than Marin's. Happy to see he doesn't actually have much support. He should have been booted last week.

We really do need to get rid of Marin so that her Narnia fans will go away and a real contest can be had between the remaining contestants. I think Sophist will win either way, but we should at least have a fair contest. We are voting off 2 people today, so we need to decide up front that either F&D or Alex is going down. Whoever that is, all of their supporters should switch their vote to the other person so that they pop up over Marin.

Right now it looks like Alex is losing that battle, but wait until Sunday and see what it looks like then. Whoever is losing then, everyone switch their vote and let's get rid of Marin!

For those inclined to vote strategically, current percentages are:

Sophist: 45.3%
Marin: 21.8%
F&D: 17.8%
Alex: 15.2%

I have to think it would be better for all of us if Marin were eliminated now. F&D has shown some serious upside this week. Although I doubt she'll beat Sophist head to head in the end, I'd like to see one more week of work out of her rather than suffer through more Marin.

Sophist supporters: he's pretty safe, run up F&D to kill Marin.

Excellent, F&D is now tied with Marin. Is it too much to hope I've seen the last of Michael Jackson on ATL?

OOOOoooooooo F&D is starting to overtake Marin!!

please some of you sophist supporters (like myself) switch to F+D so we can end the reign of terror that is Marist

Strategic voters: you do not need to get BOTH Alex and F&D up above Marin, since two people are being eliminated this week. Marin doesn't need to come in last, just in one of the last two places.

Sophist seems safe - if good number of the Sophist supporters switch to their choice of Alex or F&D, they can insure that Marin is not in the top two.

I voted for Alex. I like Alex, F&D, and Sophist about equally, but Sophist seems safe already, and between Alex and F&D, I prefer Alex a little bit (I thought his steak story and interview tips wraps ups were good).

- One of the 8.2% who voted for Exley last week

43: amen.

I just switched from Alex to F&D.

38: "#20 - You're an A--hole. Really? Just vote for who you want to win. Stop strategizing like a loser. No one is going to listen to you."

I'm neither an "a--hole" nor "strategizing like a loser." People ARE listening to me, and my strategy seems to be working pretty well.

20 (strategizing like a winner)

Alex people, it really looks like he's going to lose. I don't have strong feelings about him either way, but it may be time to consider your second choice. Which should be someone other than Marin.

I'm an Alex voter, but I will switch to F&D on Monday morning if it looks necessary to keep Marin from being in the top two. Sophist doesn't appear to need any more help.

Everyone says ATL commenters are cantankerous assholes. But look how well we work together when we have a common goal: smashing Marin's hopes.

20/50: this is the Bush administration. It's not "strategy", it's "strategery". Or "Strategerie". Your preference.

Either way, your work is inspired.

53, that's a beautiful sentiment. I think I'm going to cry. Group hug time!

They all suck. In good conscience, I cannot be a part of this vote.

Death to the Marinheads!

Oh snap! 11's gonna delete his bookmark. He's not playing games.

53--

Hopes and dreams. You gotta remember the and dreams part.

Vote for Alex!

How can you people seriously vote for anyone other than Alex or Sophist? They had the only decent posts this week.

I would vote for Sophist but I really don't want to have any chance of being stuck with Marin or F&D any longer.

Of course, there is a downside to this: the marinara, or whatever they are, if angered, may return the following week to tilt the final vote.

#60: Alex is getting the fewest votes because he's the worst contestant.

#61: yes, we will.

#61: yes, we will.

Lat -- Please make the final round next week secret ballot. Then the Marinistas can't figure out who real ATL readers like less and try to boost that candidate.

Kash for EIC!!!

We should all be very concerned about -- and vigilant against -- a voting ambush by the marincong on Sunday night.

Why isn't a "there aren't words to describe how little I care" option?

The Marinariat doesn't have the pull to stage a last minute push. They've already all rushed in to cast their votes for her, and she's barely beating Alex. Marin is toast. So is ATL. Don't hand it off, Lat!

68, because if you really cared that little you wouldn't have read this post, much less commented on it.

The vote is being RIGGED; F&D just jumped over thirty percent of the vote.

LAT YOU NEED TO CHECK THE IP ADDRESSES. THE VOTE IS BEING RIGGED!

71 = Marincong attempt to obtain a revote

How on earth is F&D pulling into the lead?

73. Capitalism. And pwnage. The beauty of free markets.....with a little collusive behavior.

Dear 20:

Alex has no chance of making it.

Therefore if the Alex voters switch to Sophist (let's face it, the #1 choice anyway) then the dreaded Marin and her Marinheads will be gone by Monday noon.

And F & D is climbing because she is second best qualified.

Write in for Loyola 2L

I really don't get the Marin hatred. I thought she pretty clearly won the first week (though she also pretty clearly sucked this week, as did everyone else). Does anyone actually think F&D is better than Marin though? Are people just upset by the fact that she has another blog? Not that I particularly care -- all four of these contestants should be booted immediately. Lat should do a re-do and just make Kash the interim EIC. But I am happy to see that people are correctly placing Alex dead last.

77,

Even first week, Marin wasn't so good. But yes, a lot of the hatred is because she has another blog--and it's deserved. Her natural writing style sounds like a cutsy, 40 something, single woman--which clashes with the snarky, gossipy, mock-pretentious feel to ATL. Lat's an awesome editor because he gets good rumors and can write lucidly. Marin may write correctly, but one gets the vibe that any blog she runs would be based on her cult of personality.

God, when is this lame "contest" going to end?? Just close your eyes and pick somebody already.

71: the vote wasn't rigged, what you saw was a whole horde of sophist voters changing their votes to F&D all at once.

78: good lord, did you really just write that marin is objectionable b/c she writes like a single woman? oh, the horror! the horror!

now, i don't care for marin's blog and i don't think she's the best choice for ATL, but it is beyond me why no one can recognize the *sarcasm* behind it. i don't find it to be particularly amusing, but at least acknowledge that its not meant to be taken at face value.

81: Marin's sarcasm and terrible blog made me a homosexual. I have given up on all women since womankind can produce such a specimen.

Latest percentages for those thinking of voting strategically:

Alex 12.9
Marin 17.8
F&D 34
Sophist 35.4

Strategic voting is cynical and cruel, but so is openly soliciting random Internet friends to rig the vote in a contest which they know nothing about.

And only one of the two reeks of desperation.

81 - I do understand that Marin's other blog is satirical. But I don't find it funny or cute, just annoying. I think she would be a terrible choice for ATL EIC because her style is not what this site is about.

84, I don't even think strategic voting is cynical, and certainly not cruel. The point is to choose who you think would be the best EIC. If you think, as I do, that Alex, F&D, and Sophist are at least roughly comparable, I don't see what is wrong with voting in a way that knocks out the weakest link.

Now strategic voters, can we please get Alex's vote at least a bit higher than Marin, so she comes in dead last? I know that third place will finish her off, but it would be nice to see her last.

RE: Strategic voting

Dear fellow anti-Marinheads:

Thank you for you cooperation. This may the first time in ATL history when we have put aside our differences to vanquish a common annoyance.

We re almost there. But the threat remains.

Twice the Marinheads have rallied, pushing the Schamazer’s % back above 18, and twice we have collectively driven her numbers down. More important, we have pushed the numbers of her nearest opponent (F&D) up to a level that (we hope) the Aruba vacationing Marin cannot reach.

But please keep your eye on the prize. It is far more important to keep F&D’s numbers up (but not higher than Sophist) than to have Marin come in last.

Lets not get greedy and blow it.

Thank you,

AnyoneButMarin

Why are you all voting for F&D over Alex? You do realize that the bottom 2 are being eliminated, right? F&D isa disaster.

Dear 85,

We should do lunch, since we are both apparently sitting at a terminal on Saturday afternoon. I suppose it could be a terminal in Aruba. But I quote you (heavy on the ellipsis):

"I don't... think strategic voting is... cruel... I know that third place will finish [Marin] off, but it would be nice to see her last."

I mean, I agree; but I think you've helped to prove my point. Not that it matters one way or the other. I'm really not sure what to expect once Lat is gone and the ATL Idol honeymoon is over.

Anyway, call me.

Love, 84

87: It was just a snowball effect. I think most strategic anti-Marin voters didn't have strong preferences between F&D and Alex, but since F&D was higher when the anti-Marin push started, he was the beneficiary.

Those of you who are voting anti-Marin based on her personal blog: check out WWW.FROLICANDDETOUR.COM which is quite likely F&D's personal blog (it's by a former lawyer who used to blog for Television Without Pity) - and think twice about putting F&D in the top two.

It really doesn't matter who matches up against Sophist in the final round. That person will lose. We just wanted to show Marin exactly how much we didn't want her in this contest any longer. I mean, getting a couple thousand people to anonymously cooperate with each other over the internet is pretty impressive.

I vote Marin

90: that blog is nowhere near as nauseating as that narnia horror

I can't be bothered to read FROLICANDDETOUR.COM. I sort of think of personal blogging as the metro equivalent of huffing glue. Or the post-teen equivalent of MySpace. Do you keep a diary? Do you post it online? I thought not.

But the one thing I was looking for at this site, and DIDN'T see, was something along the lines of "Hey guys please head on over to this other website and VOTE FOR MEEEEEEE!!"

Sad, but not really desperate. Minus zero point five points and straight to bed without dessert.

90-- If that is right and that F&D is our F&D then she also wrote this http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Still-Single-Evan-Marc/dp/0452287383 and one of the book reviews describes her as the "Paula" to her co-author's "Simon"

I think it's ridiculous that you moronic people rigged a vote because you didn't like Marin based on a few blog posts. Even after your stupid efforts she's got more than 20% of the vote. The 2nd spot rightfully belongs to her.

96:
we didn't rig a vote. you guys rigged the vote last week. so this week, we've decided to show you all who the boss is!

Haha, are you the "BOSS" 97? Pathetic. I can tell that you were the smelly kid in your law school section.

96=98=marin

Memo to 96/98/Marin: we are conspiring against you because you reek of mediocrity and desperation. You should be trying to disabuse us of these impressions, not repeatedly confirming them

Um, Idiot #100 - I am not Marin.

101 = daddykins

101,

That comment was properly directed at #99, as #100 never claims that 96=98=Marin.

But if you're going to use the word "moronic" you'd do well not to ignore the fact that MARIN rigged the vote by inviting outsiders (her blog fans) to participate in this vote.

If ATL readers decide to spitefully vote for someone other than Marin even though they think Marin is technically better than that person, that's just strategic voting to achieve a desired outcome: perhaps it's cynical and cruel, as noted above, but not the same as rigging. If ATL wants F&D in the finals and not Marin, that's what votes are for.

The vote isn't for second place anyway, so this whole discussion is somewhat moot. If you want to assign blame, blame the August 7th post consisting entirely of pictures.

I dont understand how anyone has "rigged" anything here. People voted for other candidates because they didn't like Marin as much as the others. That is the way elections work. I'm pretty sure nobody said "wow, that Marin is great, but I better vote for someone else because a few anonymous comments on the message boards said I should!" And I don't think anyone voted for a candidate they didn't like in order to keep Marin from winning - that just wouldn't make any sense.
What comments here pointed out, quite correctly, is that two candidates were going to be eliminated, and people might want to vote in a way that would keep their top two candidates in the race. If Marin were one of the top two favotires, that advice would have benefited her, but she wasn't so it didn't.
I dont have anything against Marin personally, but I haven't been impressed with her posts here (especially that pointless picture-melding atrocity last week), and I didn't see anything on her Narnia blog (which she invited us to look at in her introductory post) that would convince me that her bad posts here were an aberration.
The second spot doesn't "rightfully" belong to her - if it did, more people would have voted for her. Its as simple as that.

103,
1. Marin went to law school and worked at BIGLAW. Thus, a great many readers of her personal blog are also lawyers and ATL Readers (I, for example, read both.)
2. The other competitors may have very well invited outsiders to vote for them as well. We don't know if they have personal blogs, if they made shoutouts on facebook, if they mass-emailed their relatives, etc.

This whole debacle just made me feel animosity for fellow lawyers, so many of whom are clearly lacking in humor, lack the satire/sarcasm gene, are sexist, are threatened by female wit, and are overall just pretty dumb.

-A female lawyer and long-time ATL reader (and to the ubiqutous douchebags who will accuse me of being Marin, no, I am not her.)

104- where have you been? There was a strategic call to arms - who asked others to switch their votes from one candidate to another so that Marin would not be able to stay in the competition. If person A initially voted for Sophist, but then switched their vote to F&D in order to defeat Marin that is not voting for the candidate you want to win - that is rigging the vote against Marin.

105,
i chose not to vote for marin for a variety of reasons. that does not make me sexist. btw, i'm a also female and a long-time atl reader.

107,
Choosing not to vote for Marin is perfectly fine and I have no problem with it. I have a problem with people switching their vote from Sophist to F&D in a concerted effort to take away Marin's number 2 spot because they don't like her personal blog.

107,
That's fine. But how does switching your vote from Marin (even if it's to spite her/her blog readers) to F&D, who is also female, sexist?

108 -- It wasn't just Marin's personal blog. I thought she was the worst contestant remaining. Since Lat wouldn't let us vote people off (as I and other readers previously requested), I decided to ask the ATL readers to vote Marin off by voting strategically. There's nothing wrong with that. You can campaign for someone, or you can campaign against someone. I chose to campaign against Marin.

--20/50

that last post (109) was directed at 108 and not 107.

-109

109,
The sexist comment was directed to the many commenters who appeared afraid of the new "girly" direction ATL would take if Marin were an EIC and the repeated comments about Marin's appearance, breast size, etc.

My Fellow Alex Voters,

We fought the good fight but it is time to realize that our time has passed. In moments like these we might want to throw in the towel and move on but we shouldn't. The Marin voters continue to try and intimidate and cajole and we simply can't let that stand at ATL. We need to move our votes to F&D or Sophist so that we can help the long term health of ATL. Otherwise, in a month's time we will have noone to blame but ourselves.

Onward to a Sophist and F&D victory!

-Alex Supporter (now voting for F&D)

ps. We don't hate Marin because she is a woman. See ATLs (general) love for Kash. We hate her because she is an opportunistic and not funny.

106, 108 -

People are not required to vote for their first choice. Voting for one's second choice to prevent one's last choice from being elected is not "rigging" anything. If Marin were the second choice of the majority of the people voting, then that is where she would have ended up. She wasn't.

By your logic, anyone who personally favors Bob Barr or Ralph Nader for president must vote that way, because it would be impermissible vote-rigging for them to vote for their second choice, a major party candidate who was more electable, as a way of preventing the party they really dislike from taking office. That is not vote-rigging, that is common sense.

-104

again - atl was made 4 da boyz

105,

Are you trying to justify Marin's attempt at vote rigging?

Or saying that Marin getting her BIGLAW card punched somehow makes the insipid fluff posted on her blog relevant to ATL?

Or that the above-mentioned biglawyerhood somehow means that the readers of the above-mentioned insipid fluff, who were invited to participate in the above-mentioned rigging attempt, are just a subset of ATL readers who happen to enjoy reading insipid fluff that is not related to the law? And thus that they all would have voted in ATL Idol anyway even if Marin hadn't explicitly asked them to?

A bit of a stretch?

106,

I was aware of the whole "strategic voting" thing.

I am operating under the premise that an actual ATL reader is entitled to vote based on any reason at all, right up to and including dislike of Marin's choice of lip gloss. This is a web-based tabloid, after all, not law review. But anyone else on the Internet, who was invited to come to this website from out of the blue, for the express purpose of voting in the Idol contest, is a vote-rigger.

As 105 correctly states, we don't know who Facebooked their friends asking for fake votes. But we DO know that all five of the other contestants, if they did such a thing, were intelligent enough NOT to post a link to their solicitation here on ATL. Should that count for them, or against her? No; and YES.

#94 said: “But the one thing I was looking for at this site, and DIDN'T see, was something along the lines of "Hey guys please head on over to this other website and VOTE FOR MEEEEEEE!!"”

If you missed it, you were not paying attention:

“Very Glorious and Miraculous Announcement REVEALED”

Link: http://livinginnarnia.blogspot.com/2008/07/very-glorious-and-miraculous_28.html

Relevant quote:

“As you may know, I quit my job in May to basically blog for free and hope that one day someone would notice my writing and shower me with luxxxurious wealth and everlasting youth, and it appears that day is VERY NEAR because I am among the SIX FINALISTS TO BE ABOVE THE LAW'S FULL TIME EDITOR/BLOGGER….. HERE IS WHERE YOU COME IN: the way they're selecting the winner is by audience vote. There are three rounds to the competition - this week, next week, and - wait for it - the week after that. Each week we have to write some posts for the site and then proceed to get skewered alive by the ATL commenters. The voting polls will be open this Friday. At that point anyone who has ever read this blog needs vote for me or else. As the dreaded voting day draws nearer, I'll fill you in on the details, but rest assured if I get this job a) I will obviously continue to post on this blog and b) there will be a new sheriff in town at ATL - more scandal, more pictures, more humor, more shamazingness.

#94 said: “But the one thing I was looking for at this site, and DIDN'T see, was something along the lines of "Hey guys please head on over to this other website and VOTE FOR MEEEEEEE!!"”

If you missed it, you were not paying attention:

“Very Glorious and Miraculous Announcement REVEALED”

Link: http://livinginnarnia.blogspot.com/2008/07/very-glorious-and-miraculous_28.html

Relevant quote:

“As you may know, I quit my job in May to basically blog for free and hope that one day someone would notice my writing and shower me with luxxxurious wealth and everlasting youth, and it appears that day is VERY NEAR because I am among the SIX FINALISTS TO BE ABOVE THE LAW'S FULL TIME EDITOR/BLOGGER….. HERE IS WHERE YOU COME IN: the way they're selecting the winner is by audience vote. There are three rounds to the competition - this week, next week, and - wait for it - the week after that. Each week we have to write some posts for the site and then proceed to get skewered alive by the ATL commenters. The voting polls will be open this Friday. AT THAT POINT ANYONE WHO HAS EVER READ THIS BLOG NEEDS VOTE FOR ME OR ELSE. As the dreaded voting day draws nearer, I'll fill you in on the details, but rest assured if I get this job a) I will obviously continue to post on this blog and b) there will be a new sheriff in town at ATL - more scandal, more pictures, more humor, more shamazingness."

117/118 - No, #94 didn't miss Marin's plug for herself on her Narnia blog. What 94 was referring to is a blog called FROLICKANDDETOUR.COM, which might or might not be related to the contestant of the same name. 94 was just saying that whatever the merits of that blog, at least its author didn't ask readers to vote for her over here at ATL, as Marin did with her blog. So you didnt really need to post that quote from Marin's Narnia blog (much less twice), though I guess it does help to remind us just how shamazing she was.

Dear 119:

The last post on FROLICKANDDETOUR.COM was in 2007.

"90: that blog is nowhere near as nauseating as that narnia horror."

Narnia horror indeed.

They're all still inferio.

Kash.

They're all still inferior.

Kash.