PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2000 - OFFICIAL CANDIDATES

Quentin Colgan

Quentin Colgan tells visitors to his web site straight up that his position on the major issues are neither liberal nor conservative, but veer all over the place. This former auto-mechanic from Northern California is against any form of gun control, but he also wants to put an end to the war on drugs. He'd leave abortion and education to individual states, but create a national health care system. Colgan sees some basic welfare as necessary, though he would impose time limits linked to education. And he is furious at the half a trillion dollars the U.S. government spends every years on what he calls "Wealthfare" - the kickbacks, subsidies and tax breaks given to huge corporations.

Much of his platform centers on eliminating corporate welfare and changing existing tax structures to benefit the average American. As a widowed father of three boys, (ya gotta love a guy whose youngest son goes by the name "Topper") who has run his own business as well as working for others, Colgan, 41, is well-suited to speak for and to Middle America. He's a smarter-than-normal Joe Average who is tired of working hard for his dollars only to see them eaten up by taxes and health care costs while watching big money rake in more millions. And he's tired of politicians who come out of Yale or Stanford and presume they understand what the average American needs. "I will not let someone in a thousand dollar suit tell me what I should say about the issues just to appeal to the majority of voters."

His website lays out some plans for change that sound like the kinds of things we all discuss around the dinner table: alternatives to Social Security, tax structures that benefit the working man, practical health care reforms. There's no party agenda here, just a lot of common sense and a surprising dose of compassion. He's also one of those rare political birds who announces his religious affiliation and then keeps it out of his issue statements. Generally, we here at Dark Horse 2000 twitch whenever religion is mentioned, but Colgan's statement hardly raised a prickle: "... I am not one of those people who go around preaching hate and intolerance in the name of Jesus. I try to follow the simple commandments... you should love your neighbor as you love yourself."

This is a nice, intelligent guy with a vision. Unlike some nice guys however, he doesn't scan as a pushover. He's thought his agenda through and come up with working proposals. He's also dead serious about wanting to be President - because he really cares. They eat his sincere type alive for breakfast in Washington, but we suspect that Colgan would at least give the bureaucrats and lobbyists a case of indigestion on the way down.