Margaret Hanley cast her first vote for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She was charmed when she met John Kennedy and remains a strong supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The Glassport woman said Sen. Barack Obama has failed to win her over and is undecided about the presidential election in November.

But her family has no doubt which lever she will pull.

"Mom will vote Democratic,'' said daughter Rosemary Smith of her mother's lifelong allegiance to the principles and candidates of the Democratic party.

On July 12, family members and friends of Mrs. Hanley, of Glassport, will gather at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association in Oakland in honor of her 100th birthday on July 15.

Mrs. Hanley said she became interested in politics through her father, Pasquale "Pete'' Goshio, who founded the borough's Democratic organization after the Wall Street crash of 1929.

Until that time, she said, the Mon Valley community was predominantly Republican.

The family lived above Goshio's grocery store at 725 Monongahela Ave. She said she and her seven siblings and their mother, Rosina, helped their father in the family business. She also recalls that the family always had plenty of grapes on hand for wine making.

"Glassport was very Italian then,'' she said.

During her high school years at St. Peter's in McKeesport, she worked as a census taker, traveling door-to-door in Glassport, pencil and long ledger in hand.

She said she took her job so seriously that when he father asked to see her notes, she turned him down, "on grounds of confidentiality.''

During World War II Mrs. Hanley worked as a foreman in the Pittsburgh Steel Foundry in Glassport.

For the next several decades she campaigned as a volunteer for Democratic candidates throughout the county and was a Democratic committee member.

"When you called on people at their homes they would be polite and listen to what you had to say,'' she said of the grass-roots approach used before 24/7 cable news coverage.

In the 1960s, Mrs. Smith said that her mother and her late father, Angus Hanley, were the local "power couple.'' He served on borough council and she worked as the "go-to'' person for politicans.

"Once a man stopped by who planned to run for council. He said he was told, 'If you want to get elected, you had to see Marge Hanley first,' '' Mrs. Hanley recalled.

She met presidential candidate John F. Kennedy at a function in Pittsburgh.

``He was a charmer. He made you feel like you were the only one in the room,'' she said.

President Kennedy, she said, is her favorite of the 18 presidents in her lifetime.

Her affection for the Kennedy family is rivaled only by her admiration of the Clintons: She regards Bill Clinton as a "great president'' and vigorously supported Mrs. Clinton in her quest for the nomination.

"She's a fighter like I was. And I have always found her to be truthful,'' Mrs. Hanley said.

In earlier years she would have made phone calls on Mrs. Clinton's behalf and arranged rides to the polls -- as she did until age 95.

Today, a widow, she watches CNN and C-SPAN with a clipboard for taking notes, and enjoys the company of daughters Mrs. Smith, of North Huntingdon, and Nancy Tall, of Oakland, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

As for going out and rubbing elbows with friends and neighbors as in the old days, "I do it every chance I get,'' she said.