Some people's dreams of working in the Oval Office end after they leave elementary school.

But Katherine McGinley said her passion to be president still lingers.

"I'd like to start off as a lobbyist," McGinley (junior-international politics and economics) said. "But eventually I'd like to make it to the top."

As this year's presidential election approaches, McGinley said her vote for President George W. Bush is only one more statement in her many years of political involvement.

"I've been around politics for as long as I can remember," she said. "At the dinner table, that's what my family and I would always discuss."

McGinley said that, in second grade, she took a trip with her parents to Washington, D.C., to see former President George H.W. Bush speak.

McGinley and her mother have been involved with many local political campaigns near her home outside of Pittsburgh.

Since coming to Penn State, she has continued to stay involved with politics by joining the College Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom.

McGinley said she believes it is only a matter of time before a woman becomes president, and she would like to be one of the first.

"I think Hillary Clinton will run and so will Condoleezza Rice," she said, "and I want to follow."

McGinley said it will be interesting to see if there will be a switch in the way domestic and international issues are handled by a woman -- a change that could lead to more diplomacy.

She said she would bring to the office a belief in Reaganomics and that the government should stay out of big business -- a policy she fears will change if Sen. John Kerry becomes president.

"I think that if people can do what they want in the business world, more jobs will be created," McGinley said.

Bush's economic policy and promise for tax cuts are the most important reasons she's giving him her vote this year, she said.

"He has already lowered taxes for a lot of people, and he will keep lowering them for people across the board," McGinley said.

It is hard to have a federal program for education, but Bush's passage of the No Child Left Behind Act shows that he is dedicated toward educational reform, McGinley said.

Bush has long received criticism for his decision to go to war in Iraq, but McGinley said she supported his choice.

"I'm OK with the rest of the world not being OK with Bush's foreign policy," she said.

While McGinley shares many of her viewpoints with the Republican Party, she said she doesn't agree with some of Bush's policies, such as his stance for the death penalty.

"By no means am I a straight party-liner," she added.

McGinley said she has been reading newspapers since a young age and now reads a selection of conservative and liberal publications.

She said she knows it is important to understand all kinds of political views if she wants to gain rank in the world of politics.