·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Vote Gore, but Not For Sure (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Leaning Gore. Four More Years Vs. Taking A Chance (10.18.2000) ·After the Second Debate (10.13.00) ·After the First Debate: What Neither Candidate Cared to Mention (10.5.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.00) Joseph is 30 years old and is a vice president of marketing at an architecture and design firm. He is single. Though eligible to vote since 1988, this will be the first election in which he plans to vote. community, diversity, taxes He played football at Cornell University and tried out for the New York Giants.

My name's Joseph Jordan. I am 30 years old. I'm here in St. Louis. I was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, which is a hop, skip and a jump across the water. I left there and moved to North City, St. Louis. We moved to the housing projects there. I got picked up by a school here in West County called St. Louis Priory.

Priory is an all boys school. I think tuition now is probably close to $10,000 per student. So imagine that versus life in east St. Louis, where right now my grandmother's home is next-door to a vacant lot which is directly across the street from a place that used to be a park that is now just filled with glass and things like that.

I am Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for an architecture and construction firm. We're called Metropolitan Design and Building. We are one of the top 50 remodeling, renovation companies in the nation. Day-to-day, my job is to interact with the clients. I make sure that all our contract negotiations go through. I make sure that all the clients' best interests are-- are happening. I was eligible to vote in 1988. And I, -- I just did not know that it was-- I didn't know if, Democratic, Republican-- I just had no clue if that's what I wanted to get into. And I hadn't studied and I hadn't-- I hadn't learned enough about, individual policies and things like that, in order to make -- a conscious vote. You know, one that I could respect when it was over. So it took a long time for me to start to really understand, kind of, if I stood anywhere. And I waited. This will be my first election-- presidential election-- that I will actually vote in. I cannot say that I am a Democrat. I can say that I lean more to the Democratic side. I definitely have some Republican values. There's no question about that. I'm looking for a great Independent, and I wish McCain had, you know, stuck around just a bit. It would have been nice to at least hear the possibilities of that.

I guess I started questioning politics after I became much more involved in things like racial diversity, socioeconomic status, how best to make sure those that have not, have at least a shot in making it to the starting line, you know. One of the positives about the Republican side-- and it's-- and it's a scary thing for me to admit this-- but as my-- As I start to, gain more income in my life, and I stop looking check to check, I start, now, to think about things like money market accounts and possibilities of stock trades, and all of that kinds of stuff, stuff that I had never thought about before. And as you start to get into that mentality, you go, well, "My goodness. Half of my check's gone." If I voted for George W. Bush, my family's reaction would probably be, "Hmm. Now he's made it enough, in terms of the amount of-- in terms of his income, his annual income, that now he's attempting to protect it the best way that he can. And the best way to do that would be to vote Republican." I think that's what my family would say. I believe that the government and the communities have to work together. I do not believe that one-- I do not want to live in a country where the government has its thumb in everything that I do. But I don't want to live in a place where there's no program to help the least of my neighbors out. I don't want a country where those people are falling through the cracks and people just go, "Well-- oh well. You know, they could have made it; they should have made it. They didn't make it." Because that's my family, you know, to some extent.

If I had to guess in terms of my workmates, how they are going to vote in this upcoming election at least 80 percent of the company I'd say is Republican, very die-hard Republicans.

My family is probably 98 percent Democratic, I would say. Whether not one way or the other I would be influenced by work or by my family's decision, No.

I am genuinely on the fence. I need to see the debate Tell me what the issues are and stay consistent with what they are, and then you've got a-- you've got a good chance of getting more votes, and possibly mine.

·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Vote Gore, but Not For Sure (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Leaning Gore. Four More Years Vs. Taking A Chance (10.18.2000) ·After the Second Debate (10.13.00) ·After the First Debate: What Neither Candidate Cared to Mention (10.5.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.2000)