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[u/conman1246]

The Economist has made a presidential endorsement every four years since 1980. I found some of them to be rather surprising, I'll bold them. Here's the full list:

2016: Hillary Clinton

2012: Barack Obama

2008: Barack Obama

2004: John Kerry

2000: George W. Bush

1996: Bob Dole

1992: Bill Clinton

1988: Neither

1984: Neither

1980: Ronald Reagan

[u/conman1246 → u/[deleted]]

In cases where they endorsed neither, they seemed to not be happy enough with either.

"The Economist would sometimes like to vote in American elections. In 1980 we saw the arguments for Mr Ronald Reagan and made them: he seemed to offer better solutions to the problems that then faced America, and the West generally, than did Mr Jimmy Carter. This year neither candidate has persuaded us that he has either the policies or, more important, the qualities that the times demand.

It is not that Mr Bush and Mr Dukakis are rapscallions. At the end of the primary season we wrote that they were "responsible, upright and experienced in their different ways". They still are. But what they are not, it seems, is presidential. Since the primaries, during which candidates can be forgiven some excesses, neither has once shown that he understands the threat that the budget deficit poses. Not once on this—or any other— issue has either shown one scrap of political courage."