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Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. says the majority and the most serious of criminal charges against workers for a community activist group stemming from a voter registration investigation will not be affected by a constitutional challenge filed by the American Civil liberties Union.

PennDOT has spent $60,000 to create large green road signs telling motorists that funding was secured by the federal stimulus package. Agency spokesman Eric Waters said the signs will be visible at 30 projects across the state. The signs will cost about $2,000 each. "We received $1 billion for roads and bridge projects; not all of the 242 projects will have signs," he said

A district judge who held another ACORN worker for trial Monday on election law violations urged prosecutors to go after the real culprit, the organization that employed him. "Somebody has to go after ACORN," Senior District Judge Richard H. Zoller said about the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "It's happening all over the country. All you have to do is turn on the television," he said, referring to voter registration fraud charges brought recently against ACORN and its workers in Nevada. "We will," Allegheny County Detective Robert F. Keenan promised as he wrapped up his testimony. A spokesman...

Mt. Washington's Grandview Avenue "campaign" office of "Sanders for Senate" was so lifelike to those passing by that many stopped in to find out about the new candidate for the U.S. Senate. "Every single one of them asked if 'Sanders' would be running against (Pennsylvania Democrat U.S. Sen.) Arlen Specter, and, if so, where could they sign-up to volunteer," said media expert John Brabender on the set of "Moving Numbers," a Webcast about to go national for a new political entertainment group.

Pittsburgh native and former Ohio congressman John Kasich will be announcing his bid to take on Democratic Governor Ted Strickland for the Buckeye state's executive office in 2010. Look for the announcement to appear around the same time on his Web site Kasich hails from the McKees Rocks suburb of Pittsburgh that also gave Pennsylvania the late Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll and cable news junkies frequent appearances of Oxi-Clean spokesperson, Billy Mays (Hi, Billy Mays here!). A former nine-term congressman, presidential candidate and host of his own Fox News Show appropriately called "Heartland with John Kasich," Kasich, 57, filed...

Word out of Washington is that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the political wise-guys from the Obama administration plan on "visiting with" Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Joe Sestak. Their objective? A clear message: Get off of the stage and out of a possible primary race against "incumbent" Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter. "I have received a call from DSCC chair Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey," admitted Sestak in an interview. "But we keep missing each other." Probably a good thing for both men at this moment: Sestak has no inclination to be pushed out of a race and Menendez's marching...

Despite the drubbing taken by American newspapers in recent months, the Tribune-Review has posted significant gains in circulation since 2007. Average circulation for the Sunday Tribune-Review rose by 2,681 newspapers, or 1.4 percent, to 193,563 in 2008, according to unaudited figures recently filed with Audit Bureau of Circulations. Since then, the Sunday Tribune-Review's average circulation for the six months ended March 31 increased by 1,084 to 193,507, or nearly 1 percent higher than a year ago. And average daily circulation for the six months ended March 31 jumped by 13,400 to 164,311, or almost 8.9 percent higher than the year...

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter (R) finds himself down 21 points to former Rep. Pat Toomey in a potential 2010 Republican primary, according to a new Rasmussen poll. Specter now has a 42%/55% favorability rating, while Toomey enjoys a 66%/19% rating. Toomey lost to Specter by a slim margin in the 2004 Senate primary, but in an on-camera interview with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Salena Zito, Toomey said things are different this time. "It's a very different race," Toomey said. "I think the press has figured out that this time the outcome is going to be different." "Let me assure you, I...

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — better known as Joe the Plumber — headlined a raucous rally against pro-union legislation Monday night where critics and supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act jeered one another. Two Green Tree police officers broke up several arguments to prevent fights in the midst of a crowd of about 150 packed inside a Radisson ballroom. The crowd was divided

All eyes in Pennsylvania are on U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and whether he votes for or against the $800 billion dollar stimulus bill, now called ‘the new stimulus compromise’ that may go up for vote this evening. “If he votes yes,” said one Republican strategist attending the Pennsylvania GOP state committee meeting in Harrisburg, “He guarantees himself a primary challenge.” Up for re-election in 2010 which ever way he goes, it will be the vote heard round the world. “There is potentially no member in the U.S. Senate that has it tougher in the next six to eight months than...

President Obama endorses the Black & Gold President Barack Obama just found the perfect way to win over the bitter gun clingers of Western Pennsylvania; endorsing the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Arizona Cardinals in this week’s upcoming Super Bowl game.

This coming Sunday, Gov. Edward G. Rendell will be all out for both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers in their NFL conference championship games. But if both teams happen to win, well, then it is all Eagles. Rendell told the New York Times that he has to be loyal. “If it costs me some political points, that’s life.” Rendell is a rabid Eagles fan, and is pretty sure that rabid Steelers fans would understand his Eagle loyalty. “The casual fans might be upset, but I don’t care,” he said. During World War II, the Steelers and the Eagles...

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has a bit of dilemma on his hands. It’s the kind of problem that has the potential to snowball and create an avalanche of political issues, depending on how he handles it. As the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Specter will have a front-row seat to what could become a political spectacle: the confirmation hearings of President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. Specter’s pivot point is not whether he decides to grill Holder, but how. Go overboard as many perceive he did with Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas Supreme...

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pittsburgh, and Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, don’t just differ on what direction the country should go. No, their partisanship runs much deeper than that. Their juggernaut is over who wins the critically important Steelers-Chargers playoff game that will be held in Pittsburgh this Sunday. At stake is a "friendly" wager that will mean lunch for the legislative staffs of whatever team comes up on top. If the Chargers win, Doyle will buy Primanti Brothers sandwiches and Iron City Beer for the meal. If the Steelers win, Bilbray will buy Rubio’s Mexican Food and Stone Brewery Beer....

MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews told his staff tonight that he will not be running for the U.S. Senate in 2010 from Pennsylvania, ending months of mind-numbing speculation. That move bumps up the profiles of the lesser known but more qualified possible Democratic contenders: State Rep. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy -- both of whom hail from eastern Pennsylvania. Whoever wins that spot would possibly face incumbent Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, depending on whether Pennsylvania’s longest-serving senator is “primaried” or not next spring. Specter faced a grueling

Jim Matthews, Republican chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and former candidate for lieutenant governor, says he would be surprised if brother Chris, a Democrat, would leave "hardballing" to run for the Senate. Matthews told the the AP that his brother loves his job as the anchor of MSNBC's Hardball, and is currently weighing a contract offer from the network. Rumors and polls have been flying at the possibility of a Matthews/Arlen Specter match-up if both men made it through their primaries in the race for the U.S. Senate in November 2010.

Mike Ditka has been a lot of things in life, including that man that could have possibly beaten then Illinois state senator Barack Obama when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004. Instead Ditka chose not to run because of business obligations, Alan Keyes did the honors and we all know how that turned out. The Pittsburgh native, Republican, and accomplished former NFL player, television commentator, and coach is now being ‘drafted’ once again to run to fill the seat vacated by Obama. A seat that remains open despite Gov. Blagojevich’s perfectly legal (yet tainted) appointment of former Illinois attorney...

A member of the Pittsburgh family that owns the Steelers will take the oath of office in Congress today. Tom Rooney, 39, of Tequesta, Fla., a Republican elected to represent Florida's 16th Congressional District, is the first Rooney to hold elected office. He is the grandson of Steelers founder Art Rooney. "Anyone from Western Pennsylvania that walks into my office is going to feel right at home," Rooney said in a phone interview Monday. His office will exhibit Steelers pictures and memorabilia because "it is the only framed art that I own."

Pennsylvania voters were the center of the presidential political universe this year during both the Democratic primary and the general election. Their concerns and culture allowed Hillary Clinton to get her groove back in the spring and, in the fall, became the battleground where John McCain made his last stand. Now two key Pennsylvania races -- for a U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Arlen Specter, for an open seat for governor now held by Democrat Ed Rendell -- are up for grabs in 2010, although the jockeying already has begun. Eight years ago, Pennsylvania had two Republican U.S. senators,...

A Research 2000 poll done for the progressive Web site Daily Kos shows in a possible match-up, MSNBC Hardballer Chris Matthews is only one point shy of long time Republican Sen. Arlen Specter. The poll was conducted statewide via telephone among 600 likely voters Dec. 8th thru the 10th -- it showed in a general election match-up these possible scenarios:

While most people will agree that being “politically correct” has gone too far -- Sen. Arlen Specter R-PA reminds us why political correction began in the first place: tasteless ethnic jokes. At the swanky once-a-year Pennsylvania Society (where all politico’s large & small from the Keystone State trek up to NYC to converge on Park Avenue for luxurious power- broking) Specter thought it appropriate to tell “Polish Jokes”. One insider said before Specter gave his speech at the Commonwealth Club he asked the audience if anyone there was Polish. Since only ten or so out of a few hundred raised...

The chair of the Allegheny County Dems, Jim Burn, has confirmed that “Hardballer” Chris Matthews has kept in touch with him about where things stand in "the west” since the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania primary. “Chris was very inquisitive about the dynamic here in the west,” said Burn, “but equally as coy regarding whether or not he would actually run for the U.S. Senate.” Burn said before this year's primary that he and Matthews mostly discussed the presidential race between Senators Clinton and Obama. “In fact,

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik said Thursday he will urge local Roman Catholics to fight any effort to expand abortion rights across the country. "That is part of the beauty of being citizens of the United States," Zubik said. "We can speak to our legislators and let them know, as Catholics, where we are coming from." Zubik returned from this week's U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, where about 300 bishops adopted a formal blessing for a child in the womb and drafted a document asking President-elect Barack Obama not to erode gains made by right-to-life supporters.

Jonathan Alford has a stunning piece in Salon about how Barack Obama's campaign views the people of Western Pennsylvania: With U.S. Rep. John Murtha making news about calling Western Pennsylvanians racist, Julia tells me about her own awful experiences driving through those rural towns. "I will never go back there again," she says. I ask her what will change these people. "Prayer and love," she says. "It's hard to love these people. But Jesus didn't say it was easy. We just have to be firm and things will change." "But these white voters are religious too," I say. "Just because...

The only truly experienced leader in this race -- the gentleman whose resume actually is worthy of the phrase -- is John McCain, 72, war hero, former congressman and longtime U.S. senator of Arizona. We first endorsed Mr. McCain for president in February, long before we knew Sen. Obama would be the Democrat nominee. But our words then are even more apropos now.

ABC News Reporter Jake Tapper's Political Punch Blog has a report on Sen. Barack Obama's push-back on John McCain's description of his tax policies, Tapper begins with a quote from Obama in Florida, here is the whole report: "The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in Sarasota, Fla., yesterday. "I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That's the American dream, that's the American way, that's terrific.

Yesterday, Barack Obama's campaign asked his supporters to “take the day” off via their Web site and YouTube. An effort to make sure that expected lines would not serve as an obstacle to voters and to use the extra bodies as volunteers so they could make calls and help with the get-out-the-vote efforts. Nine states already have ‘state holidays’ on Election Day. We, as a country, have national holidays that in theory give everyone in the country the day off, although no industry really shuts down and gives their entire workforce a collective day off. But if you take the...

Expanded role puts Petraeus in charge of winning Afghan war By Carl Prine and Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, October 26, 2008 Fresh from the Baghdad battlefield, Gen. David Howell Petraeus is a blur amidst blurs in the bowels of the Pentagon, his staffers preparing new strategies and reassessing old ones for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's urgency to the bustle, because on Oct. 31 the former commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq takes over U.S. Central Command and inherits the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, too. Whether that Halloween promotion eventually earns him a trick or a treat depends on...

John McCain began the final two weeks of the presidential campaign with a one-day, three-stop tour in Pennsylvania, a state that could offset Barack Obama's gains in Republican strongholds farther West. McCain criticized Obama as inexperienced and said the Democrat's plans on trade and the economy could plunge the country into a depression. "Sen. Obama wants to raise taxes and restrict trade. The last time we did that in tough economic times, it led to the Great Depression," said McCain, flanked by his wife, Cindy, as they addressed more than 2,500 boisterous supporters Tuesday at the Sewall Center on Robert...

ABC News Political Reporter Jack Tapper writes on his blog Political Punch that Sen. Barack Obama taped an interview with Ellen DeGeneres that will air tomorrow on her show. “I regret to inform you that he did, indeed, dance,” pens Tapper, “As he has in the past.”

First we are bitter-gun-clinging-God-clinging-racist-rednecks, now we are crackers. At least according to John Baer at the Philadelphia Daily News. Click here for his opinion column reasoning that the "Cracker Effect" is why McCain continues to campaign in PA despite sagging polls numbers. You really have to wonder how the people of Pennsylvania feel about all of the negative adjectives being thrown their way in this election - especially Democrats that vote for John McCain. It is their "traitorous" vote for McCain that everyone is targeting with less than flattering descriptives for their vote.

On the heels of telling the Pittsburgh Tribune Review that racism would play into the vote in Western Pennsylvania for president next month, Rep. Jack Murtha told local Pittsburgh television station WTAE that it's difficult for many in the area to change, saying just five to 10 years ago the entire area was "redneck." You have to wonder how residents of Pennsylvania like the descriptive phrases that have been piled on in the past few months. First, it was bitter and God and gun clinging, then it was racist, now they are rednecks. In an interview with reporter David Brown...

Barack Obama may be ahead in the polls in Pennsylvania, but he remains the "underdog," his wife, Michelle Obama, said today at a rally in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. With 19 days left, the Illinois senator’s wife was in Allegheny County to excite the base. She spoke in front of 1,500 supporters at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, where both her husband and Sen. Hillary Clinton held rallies in the Pennsylvania primary. RealClearPolitics shows Obama up 14 percentage points, that is a pretty steep plus for an underdog.

Rep. John Murtha said today in a prepared statement that he is sorry for making the comment that Western Pennsylvania is a racist area. Yesterday Murtha told the Tribune-Review that "Obama's got a problem with the race issue in Western Pennsylvania" and that the junior senator from Illinois could expect his skin color to cost him up to 4 percentage points at the polls on Nov. 4. In his statement today, Murtha said: "While we cannot deny that race is a factor in this election, I believe we've been able to look

Sarah Palin sat down Friday night with Tribune-Review political reporter Salena Zito for a wide-ranging interview that covered the economy, education, energy and the Alaska governor's approach to governing. It was Palin's first face-to-face interview with a print reporter as Republican vice presidential candidate. John McCain's running mate was in Pittsburgh for a fundraiser at the Westin Convention Center Hotel, Downtown.

Sarah Palin sat down Friday night with Tribune-Review political reporter Salena Zito for a wide-ranging interview that covered the economy, education, energy and the Alaska governor's approach to governing. It was Palin's first face-to-face interview with a print reporter as Republican vice presidential candidate. John McCain's running mate was in Pittsburgh for a fundraiser at the Westin Convention Center Hotel, Downtown. Palin: Energy independence ... certainly will stimulate our economy, circulating the dollars that we're presently spending overseas and in other countries; ... but also the clean coal technology that we got to be able to tap into; and the...

Joe Biden sent me an email tonight, ok, not really, it’s actually the Obama campaign channeling Joe Biden, but an email nonetheless came ‘from’ Joe Biden and he is mad. And he wants money for his madness. The email starts by Joe telling me that the McCain campaign is on the ropes and they are telling outright lies. Biden goes on to say that he has heard ‘unspeakable’ things in this campaign season that are ‘deeply offensive smears.’ The email then says that McCain-Palin is running a ‘dishonorable” campaign and he and Barack are fighting back but they need my...

Here is a novel idea coming to Southwestern Pennsylvania for Election Day: Sign up to become a “pollworker,” paid by a “non-partisan effort,” and then ensure that people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote actually will get to vote. This from “Pollworkers for Democracy,” which uses fear tactics based on the recent mortgage crisis as a hook to snag people living on the edge of financial problems: “Imagine being told you've lost the right to vote because the bank foreclosed on your home,” begins the e-mail. It goes on to say that if you lose your home and have to...

Sen. Barack Obama jumped to a 7-point lead in a Pennsylvania statewide poll of registered voters conducted between Sept. 23-Sept. 28 by Franklin & Marshall College. Franklin & Marshall poll director G. Terry Madonna told Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that the fundamentals are shifting in Obama’s favor with some support gains coming from female and independent voters. Late last evening, I stopped into a Southwestern Pennsylvania auto service garage and asked the three gentlemen working on various vehicles what their thoughts were on the election.

Sen. Joe Biden hit Western Pennsylvania today -- Greensburg specifically -- with his first visit to the area since the Democratic National Convention. Before he began his morning speech, Biden had to compose himself while recalling a gift of two footballs (signed by former Steeler Rocky Bleier) given by late Steelers founder Art Rooney to Biden's two boys in 1972, when they were recuperating from a traffic accident that killed his wife and daughter. Biden recalled the story after he was introduced by Rooney's son, Dan.

It will be the Pittsburgh Steelers (2-0) against the Philadelphia Eagles (1-1) that suck up all of the oxygen in this state this weekend, not Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. The famed east vs. west rivalry was once a singular team, which happened back in 1943 during World War II, when both teams lost many players to military service. The popular, though not official, nickname of the team was "The Steagles". But the Obama and McCain campaigns will certainly make every effort to remind game goers at tail gate celebrations that there is a race going on here...

The Sen. Barack Obama campaign is under performing with women, especially older white ones. So, it released a list of female surrogates that will be his force on issues that are important to those women voters -- like equal pay. There also will soon be an ad released that will hit Sen. John McCain on the touchy issue of equal pay. According to McCain-Palin spokesman Brian Rogers, that is a problem for Barack Obama, since he is the one that pays his females staffers less than the men. Rogers points to Senate Records showing that women working in Sen. Obama's...

The intelligent question thrown out among strategists for both campaigns is, can John McCain really win Pennsylvania? Really win it, not pretend to go for it, as Republicans did in 2004, all the while closing the deal in Ohio when no one was looking. The last Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania was George H.W. Bush, in 1988 -- a win preceded by two Reagans but followed by two Clintons, a Gore and a Kerry. The Kerry win was narrower than the others, however.

Rep. Jack Murtha’s (D-Johnstown) opponent in this year’s congressional race -- Lt. Col. William Russell, a decorated Iraq war veteran who was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 -- has just released an ad titled “In Cold Blood.” So far, it is one of the most powerful campaign spots to hit the airwaves in the down- ballot races this cycle in the Keystone State.

Perhaps finding out what really is going on in Pennsylvania is for me to look no further than my own backyard, literally.

DENVER - Sen. Joe Biden has no bounce, at least according to the Gallup Daily tracking polls. It's official: Sen. Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23 to 25 -- the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement -- shows 46 percent of national registered voters backing Sen. John McCain and 44 percent supporting Obama. This is not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates. This is the...

DENVER -- From the convention hall: All evidence points to a Democratic convention that will have a take-no-prisoners aggressive approach all week, driving home the contrast between John McCain and Barack Obama at every opportunity possible. An official speaking on background said that they were "not going to make the same mistake that we did in '04." Democratic analyst Mark Siegel said, "We begged the Kerry people to make the election a plebiscite on Bush, and make the '04 convention, from beginning to end the Reagan '80 series of questions: Are we better off now than we were four years...

DENVER: When most people think of Joe Biden, they think Senate longevity, confidence, a liberal with a free-wheeling impulse to give you his never-to-be-humble opinion. What they don't think of is a man who could have a great impact in Pennsylvania. The question becomes: Can he make his impact as broad as Hillary Clinton -- another Scranton native -- did in the Pennsylvania primaries? Hillary glowed in Pennsylvania. She made Pennsylvania her second home and it stuck with voters. John Kerry, married to the Heinz ketchup heiress Teresa, did the same thing in his runup to the 2004 election. He...

MANHEIM -- John McCain's last stop on a three-day swing across Pennsylvania provided clues as to how the Republican plans to beat Barack Obama in a battleground state the Democrat is favored to win.

Ridge said he was proud of how McCain has handled the crisis unfolding in Georgia. ...“He has kept a cool head, taken calls from Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili -- and really behaved very presidential in his perspective of this crisis,” said Ridge as McCain shook hands with the crowd that gathered around him. “He has been to Georgia several times,” Ridge added. “He doesn’t need to look for it on a map.”