·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Still Reserving Final Judgment (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Tipping Slightly Toward Gore After His Strong Showing (10.20.2000) ·After the Second Debate: Still Waiting to Hear a Reason to Vote for One Guy Over the Other (10.13.2000) ·After the First Debate: Tie Goes to the Guy Who Didn't Screw it Up? (10.4.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.00) Colleen is 25 years old and works as a web editor for a large private university. She is engaged to be married. In 1992 she was ineligible to vote. In 1996 she voted for Bill Clinton. taxes, welfare, and social security She is regular church-goer and is pro-choice. She believes in practicing abstinence, but doesn't want the government to get involved in these areas.

My name is Colleen Devereaux. I'm 25. I'm a Web editor at Washington University in St. Louis. and so I spend a lot of my time dealing with how to develop Web sites and how to advance technology on campus and I come from a very Democratic, traditional Irish Catholic family, and I'm marrying a very staunch Republican in about 10 months. So I've got lots of people telling me who to vote for, and I don't agree with any of them.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, in a lower middle-class house. My dad was a truck driver who died when I was ten; my mom is a pre-school teacher. Typical Irish Catholic household: a crucifix and a picture of JFK in every room sort of sums it up. And that was-- you know, what I grew up listening to was "Don't worry about the issues. Whoever the Democratic candidate is-- that's who you vote for," you know?

I mean, you can't listen to your parents your whole life. I think every generation comes from a slightly more prosperous background than their parents did. So, you know, I didn't have the struggles as a child that they did. Maryland Heights is a very traditional middle-class community. We've got a lot of houses that sort of fall in that $150,000 range, a lot of families with children. -- it's a very kind of Mayberry sort of feel around here. It's traditional America. People just-- they want to have money in the bank and they want to be able to send their kids to college, and they want to put food on the table and they want to take a nice vacation every so often. I don't think there's an even ground with either party. The Democratic Party tends to get very liberal for me on certain issues. They're very spend-happy. They like to take my money and throw it to lots of people who I don't want to have my money. But the Republicans are far too conservative for me on some issues.

I mean, I firmly, you know, believe that teenagers should be practicing abstinence, and I personally, in my own life, as far as my own decisions would go, would classify myself as pro-life. But that's my opinion, and what I like about having choice and making abortion legal is that that is something that women can decide on their own.

I think a lot of people in my age group find themselves stuck in that middle ground. They all tend to kind of throw up their hands and say "I want this, but I want that. Nobody's giving me both. I don't know what to do."

Once I hit the work force, taxes became very important to me. Where is my money going? You know, if you're spending it well, okay, I'm not having too much of a problem with you taking it. But, you know, I'm single, I have no children, you know, I don't have kids that are using the public schools or-- or anything like that. I'm not on welfare, I'm not on Medicaid. I don't feel like I'm a big drain on society. So why am I paying so much? I'm not using a lot. Where is all this money going? I'm extremely bitter about Social Security, and I'm sick of paying it, because I'm never going to get to collect it. And, you know, I-- It's going to be 40 years until I retire, 30 if I do it right, and I have no faith that that's going to be there when I retire. So why do they keep taking it from me?

I love George Bush's ideas on education, and really between the two of them, they seem to have a lot of similar ideas-- and Al Gore is certainly building a lot of tax credits in for education and education savings accounts. But between the two of them, I don't see a huge difference, except that Bush has a great record in Texas with improving education and improving test scores. As far as taxes goes, I like Gore's standpoint better. I think Gore has a better strategy, because in Bush's plan, while he does a lot to help lower income families-- and that's good, and I don't want to seem too selfish; I'm glad he would help lower income families, but I'm not lower income.

During the last round of campaigning I was very impressed with John McCain. He's a bit more conservative than I'm comfortable with, but, you know, his war history, obviously, is-- is very impressive and something that we haven't seen in a president in awhile. And just, you know, also struck me as a great man which is something that I don't see in our current candidates.

Gore seems to have a bit more integrity than-- than Bush You know, seems to be a really strong family man. I love Laura Bush, but I-- I think her husband's a bit of a scoundrel. You know, he seems like a-- an overgrown frat boy, in certain ways. And he's got a certain Clinton quality to him. The debates are going to be pretty key to me. I-- I'm looking forward to hearing more about what each of the candidates thinks. And especially, I'm looking forward to seeing them pick each other apart and, you know, poke holes in each other's plans.

My advice to both campaigns would be to keep it clean to start and do what you can to-- to try to meet all ends and not just be a straight party person. Because I don't think that's going to fly in this area. I don't think people are-- are looking for that traditional Republican candidate or that traditional Democratic candidate. I think people want to see someone who's really just going to get the job done. Get something done-- anything. Just a little bit of progress would be great. I'd be happy with that.

·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Still Reserving Final Judgment (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Tipping Slightly Toward Gore After His Strong Showing (10.20.2000) ·After the Second Debate: Still Waiting to Hear a Reason to Vote for One Guy Over the Other (10.13.2000) ·After the First Debate: Tie Goes to the Guy Who Didn't Screw it Up? (10.4.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.2000)