Meet two young voters—one Democrat and one Republican---who are blogging for us from the swing state of Ohio. Tricia Heschel and Colleen O’Kane are students at the University of Dayton and each is politically active. Meet them and take a look at their blogs to get their perspective on the candidates and the youth vote.

Tricia Heschel writes today about Obama’s acceptance speech.

Tricia Heschel

I am senior at the University of Dayton majoring in Journalism and Political Science with a minor in photography. I have always been interested in politics and voted for the first time in 2004. In my years at UD I have worked on several campaigns including local, state and national races. My most recent campaign is the Barack Obama campaign that I have phone banked for and will be doing walks for during the month of September. I am the president of the UD College Democrats and am focusing on getting young voters registered to vote regardless of who they support.

Colleen O’Kane was there Friday as McCain announced Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She will attend the Republican convention next week in St. Paul.

Colleen O’Kane

My name is Colleen O'Kane and I am a very proud Republican from the great state of Ohio. I am a Junior at The University of Dayton in the process of switching my major to Marketing, with a minor in Political Science. The end of last November I was elected President of College Republican at my college. From there I received an e-mail looking for McCain supporters, which I was and still am, and I responded. It just so happened that by responding to that call from the Delegate Coordinator, a UD grad, I was becoming an alternate delegate for the 4th District of Ohio and starting on a brand new path in my life. Currently, I am interning on the campaign and will be embarking on the voyage to Minneapolis in a few short days to be a part of something that I strongly believe in, and that is electing Senator John McCain to be our next President of these GREAT United States.