David Ortiz, MIT Graduates Were Contenders For TIME’s Reader’s Choice ‘Person of the Year’
Koch, Tsarnaev, and Ortiz
UPDATE, December 10: According to TIME, the winner of the annual “Person of the Year” cover will be announced December 11, and none of the subjects initially considered from Massachusetts made the latest top 10 list of finalists.
EARLIER: Although they didn’t win the votes of readers, alumni from MIT, the Tsarnaev brothers, and David Ortiz are all still contenders being considered as the 2013 TIME magazine “Person of the Year.”
The magazine’s editors have the ultimate say in who led the news in 2013 “for better or worse,” but decided to give readers a chance to cast their own vote for who they felt should grace the cover of TIME as the year comes to a close.
Readers could pick their favorites in both a straight “yes or no” poll and a candidate face-off. Voting closed on December 4, and the winner of their reader polls—Egyptian General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi—was announced on December 6. TIME‘s Person of the Year, picked by the publication, will be announced December 11.
As MIT’s alumni publication points out, David and Charles Koch, co-owners of Koch Industries, snagged an insignificant portion of the overall vote, but were able to make the cut for the initial list of 44 nominees. The brothers attended the institute in the early 1960s.
Of the 2 million votes cast at the start of the reader’s choice process, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister and a 1975 MIT graduate, scooped up 16,030 votes, of which 26 percent said they were in favor of him ranking in the top tier.
Big Papi, who TIME said “helped keep ‘Boston Strong’” with his inspiring—and explicit—words after the Marathon bombing and led the Red Sox to another championship as World Series MVP, received more than 12,000 votes, with 39 percent of those in favor of him winning.
The Tsarnaev brothers fared better than Ortiz for their role in making headlines this year, garnering 16,210 votes. Of those, 48 percent believed they should advance in the reader’s poll.
While the final winner is in the hands of the editors of the magazine, the top contenders based on the public voting poll were Sisi, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Miley Cyrus—all of whom squeezed out those with local connections.
It’s hard to imagine that Cyrus could outshine the work of MIT alumni and national world leaders, but, then again, America wants what America wants. And while the Kochs, Tsarnaev brothers, and Papi only took in a small percentage of the reader votes, there’s still a chance the Boston-area nominees could win if favored by the editors.
Last year, TIME picked President Obama as the person of the year. Here’s how MIT alums, Ortiz, and the Tsarnaev brothers stacked up in the reader’s poll race for “Person of the Year.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:
16,038 votes
26% – Yes
74% – No
The Koch Brothers:
13, 471 votes
27% – Yes
73% – No
Big Papi:
12,006 votes
39% – Yes
61% – No
Tsarnaev Brothers:
16,210 votes
48% – Yes
52% – No
