·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Preparing to do [her] Republican family proud (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Tipping Back Toward Gore (10.18.2000) ·After the Second Debate: Tilting Slightly from Gore to Bush (10.13.00) ·After the Debates: Still Undecided, but Tipping Slightly to Gore (10.5.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.2000) Jean is 50 and is a car saleswoman. She is married with two children and four grandchildren. In 1992 she voted for Ross Perot and in 1996 she voted for Bill Clinton. retirement, social security, education She was a music teacher before getting into car sales.

My name is Emma Jean, really, Emma Jean Pretto. I've been a Pretto for 29 years, married to my husband for 29 years. We have two beautiful daughters, and consequently, four grandchildren; three granddaughters and a grandson. And that's the important thing in my life. That's always number one.

I grew up in this neighborhood. I was born here in Oakville in 1950.

Lived here all my life. Which is, in this area, pretty unusual, because it's such a growing area that there aren't many natives around. I remember it when it was farm community, and boy it's come a long way since then.

My grandpa and my dad worked at the brewery, as well as my paternal grandfather and two uncles. And Anheiser-Busch was the going thing in St. Louis at the time, and that was the place to work. It was a good place to work. It was good to our family.

I taught music after I graduated from Webster University, I taught school for a few years and did some private teaching-- piano teaching-- and I loved it very much. But I had to make some money. And unfortunately it was not there to be had in the teaching profession-- not at that time.

In 1976, I started selling Chevrolets, and I've sold Chevrolets ever since. Here again, I'm proud of that. I like a lot of different kinds of cars, but I'm proud of the fact that I sell Chevrolets, because I think it's the working man's car.

I love my career in the car business, its been very good to me and I love it. But when you have your own grandchildren, then your eye shifts to something more important, and that's things that you didn't get to do with your own children because you were out making a living and trying to make the ends meet. And I sure would love to spend more time with my grandchildren. Now, what's important to me is retirement. I don't know where everything went in-between, but now I'm at retirement, or looking forward to it, anyway, trying to plan ahead for it, and hoping that whoever gets the position of President does the right thing for us.

If I had to put a name on it, I guess I'd be independent. I voted for Ross Perot, and that was a tough decision, because folks said that it was a wasted vote. And-- and my opinion is the only wasted vote is when you don't vote, don't use your right to vote. Then that's a waste. But I thought Ross Perot talked sense. You know, he got right to the point, told us exactly what he was going to try to accomplish and how he was going to do it.

The Clinton administration has been good and bad. It's been embarrassing, it's been healthy economically, it's been tough. It's been a roller-coaster ride, that's for sure. But I-- in my memory, I can't think of when we were in better economic shape.

The recent history has been quite good to the automotive industry. And, you know, when the car business is good, the whole economy's good. I mean, it's a real, true barometer of the economy. A lot of money to be spent, and people don't mind spending it. Vice-President Gore made mention of something the other day, that he would-- if elected, he would take our Social Security money and lock it up in a lock box, you know. Well, I like that idea, but I would like it a little bit better if it was in a lock box in a Swiss bank account somewhere earning money, you know?, not just sitting there idle. You know, just why can't it be treated like we would treat our own savings? Put somewhere responsible where it can earn money and not be deducted from.

I like clean air. I'd like the environment to be good for my grandchildren. You know, I want it to be good 50, 100 years down the road. But right now I don't want the candidate that gets into office to be so strict on it that it's going to put me out of business. So I have a little conflict there, as well.

At this point-- at this point in time, I'm gathering information, as much as I can get my hands on. I read every editorial, I read every report of every place they've been and everything that was said, and just try to take it all in. Really, that's all I can do right now, is be like a sponge and try to just soak up all the information I can about both of them, because I probably won't know until I walk in the ballot booth, seriously. See, I'm undecided.

·Voting for Gore (11.7.2000) ·Down the Stretch: Preparing to do [her] Republican family proud (10.31.2000) ·After The Final Debate: Tipping Back Toward Gore (10.18.2000) ·After the Second Debate: Tilting Slightly from Gore to Bush (10.13.00) ·After the Debates: Still Undecided, but Tipping Slightly to Gore (10.5.2000) ·Introduction (10.2.2000)