George, 27 sits on the stoop of the Porcellian Club in Harvard Square with a hand-lettered cardboard sign. "Out of work," it says.

George, who didn't want his last name to be used, says he has worked as an upholsterer, meatpacker and, most recently, a construction laborer. He hasn't worked since 1988, and he says he'll probably vote for Clinton in November.

He isn't particularly enthusiastic about it, however.

"I wish Perot stayed in the race, but we're stuck with that other character," George says.

The barrage of media coverage of this year's presidential campaign has been unrelenting. Pages upon pages of newspaper articles and hours and hours of television and radio deliver sound-bites galore.

Each evening television focuses on the candidate as they go jogging, bristle at reporters, make speeches, visit factories and get on and off airplanes and helicopters. And newspapers write and photograph the same events the next morning.

It is all part of the American people's obsession with the candidates--an obsession the media appears happy to indulge. The candidates--President Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle, Gov. Bill Clinton, Sen. Albert A. Gore Jr., '69 (D-Tenn.), even undeclared-candidate-no-more Ross Perot--are dissected and Psychoanalyzed. But in the barrage of coverage and dinner table conversations, the voters are often forgotten.

It's easier for the American people to stare at television and newspaper images than it is for them to notice the real people around them. And it takes less effort for reporters to ride along on the press bus quote from advance copies of speeches than it does for them to his the streets and talk to strangers.

"That other character," as George calls him, is Bill Clinton. The Democratic nominee is not without his flaws, says George, who lives in a room he rents in Quincy, Mass. With money from a government disability check.

"Clinton admitted that in college he tried pot. I mean, what kind of president is that," he says.

Still, George he's tired of Republicans and thinks it's time for a change. He likes Clinton's plan for universal health care. And he says that for him, this year's most important issue is jobs.

Ed Bertrand '92-94' sits in the Wash and Dry laundromat on Mt. Auburn Street near Harvard Square. He's waiting for his clothes to dry.

Bertrand is 22 years old and says he's paying more attention to this presidential campaign than he did to the last one, mainly because he's older this time around.

He didn't vote in 1988, but he plans to cast his ballot for Clinton in November.

"His economic plan seems to make sense.," Bertrand says. He says free trade and job training are the most important issues in the upcoming election.