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Article posted by Kathryn Lopez K-Lo has a notice at the beginning of this article that permission to excerpt must be obtained by the author...so I have linked it only.

Gov. Sarah Palin, once again, confounded her critics with a strong performance. She did it at the Republican convention, and she did it again last night in her debate with Sen. Joe Biden. She performed with poise and charm. She effectively made the case that Senator Obama would be naïve in foreign policy and harmful to economic growth, and that Senator McCain would be a common-sense reformer. She handled questions about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran well. She connected domestic-policy arguments to the lives of average voters. Anyone who hoped — or feared — that she would fall flat on her...

Democrats accuse locals of being racist toward Obama Published:Tuesday, September 16, 2008 By David Skolnick A local Republican official is shocked by the Democratic legislators’ comments. YOUNGSTOWN — With the Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees in the Mahoning Valley today for a rally, two local Democratic state legislators said they believe a main reason polls show a tight race is because of racist voters. “Race — that’s the only reason people in the Valley won’t vote for him,” said state Rep. Thomas Letson of Warren, D-64th, about Barack Obama, his party’s presidential nominee. “There are 1,000 reasons to vote...

Joe Scarborough and the rest of the Morning Joe crew actually had my sympathy this morning. Amidst all the infighting at MSNBC, including demands for Joe's head in Olbermann-friendly circles, one could sense that the panel was on its best behavior. During the opening hour, a subdued David Shuster—who had openly fought with Joe just two days ago—was there, but just barely. Scarborough himself could not have been more enthusiastic in his praise for yesterday's DNC proceedings, from Bill's speech to the historic fact of the nomination of an African-American. But if my impulse is to cut the Morning Joe...

Great stuff. I love the lyrics.

ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blamed Wall Street this weekend for the failing economy. "I think that Wall Street is the villain in the things that happened in the subprime lending crisis and other areas where investigations and possible prosecution is going on," McCain said in an exclusive "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos. McCain also placed responsibility on a "gridlocked" Congress. "I also think that Congress is at fault. We didn’t restrain spending. Spending got completely out of control," he said. When asked about Congress' progress in passing the housing bill, McCain said he would...

<p>REPUBLICAN US presidential candidate John McCain has got some unexpected support from his former Vietnam War jailer, who said he would vote for the former navy pilot if he could.</p> <p>Speaking to the BBC from Haiphong, Tran Trong Duyet also insisted that Senator McCain's assertions that he was tortured during his time at the prison were lies, and that no one held there was ever subjected to torture.</p>

Best in show TRIBUNE-REVIEW By: Salena Zito In the most significant stunner of the evening, Uno the beagle won the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this evening at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Uno’s victory is considered a moral victory; he broke canine breed lines by becoming the first beagle to ever win best in show at

Giuliani, Clinton share more than New York TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Rudy Giuliani was the Republican front-runner for president last fall. He had an unconventional strategy to turn his status into the nomination: Skip the early conservative primary states and focus instead on delegate-rich Florida on Jan. 29 and the "Super Duper Tuesday" states on Feb.5. Giuliani believed he would appeal to the moderate Republicans in those states. We know how that turned out. Now Clinton

John McCain For President: A Hero Leader Editorial Pittsburgh Tribune-Review February 10, 2008 You have to hand it to John McCain. He has an impeccable sense of timing. At the very moment that a dangerously fractured Republican Party could have disintegrated -- Thursday, when Mitt Romney, the darling of the anti-McCain crowd exited the race -- Sen. McCain delivered a stunning speech to the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Certainly, there was a measured sense of rebuke in the words of the Arizona senator who now has a virtual lock on the GOP presidential...

An interview with Barack Obama Salena Zito Tribune-Review ST. LOUIS -- Two days before competing in the Super Tuesday primaries, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was crisscrossing the country with stops in Idaho, Minnesota and Missouri in an attempt to win voters in traditional Republican-leaning red states. In an e-mail interview with the Tribune-Review, Obama shared his thoughts of what he is seeing and hearing as he travels across the country:

John McCain Busts a Move By Salena Zito Hands down, John McCain is the buzz in New Hampshire. After a political freefall in the summer, the man who swept Granite State Republicans and independents in 2000 has gone and done a Lazarus, resurrecting his presidential candidacy.

RealClearPolitics November 04, 2007 Wooing the 'Indies' By Salena Zito Welcome to New Hampshire: home of granite, the first presidential primary in the nation (mandated by state law) -- and mysterious independent voters. While granite makes a great countertop, and being the first primary state gets you lots of national attention, it is those independent voters who are the most valuable asset of this tiny state. New Hampshire has a lot of indies -- 44 percent of the electorate, compared with 30 percent who are registered Republicans and 26 percent who are registered Democrats. Their numbers have increased by 11...

DeLay energizes GOP faithful By Justin Vellucci TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, October 26, 2007 Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay stood in front of some of Allegheny County's top GOP donors Thursday night and delivered a blunt message appropriate for a man dubbed "The Hammer." "There still is a Republican Party in this country," DeLay said. "And we've got to get our act together and move forward."

Rudy steps right By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, October 21, 2007 (WASHINGTON DC) Rudy Giuliani took a step last week to convince some of the more sensible folks who hold rock-ribbed conservative values to re-examine his candidacy:

Romney Calls Global Body a 'Failure' By JIM DAVENPORT Associated Press 18 October 2007 PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney called the United Nations a failure on Thursday and said he would support a new coalition of the free nations of the world. The former Massachusetts governor said the U.N. Human Rights Council has repeatedly condemned Israel while taking no action against nations with repressive regimes. "The United Nations has been an extraordinary failure of late," Romney said in response to a question at a pancake house along the coast of early voting South Carolina....

When Mitt Romney appeared last week (via closed circuit from California) before the Council of Retired Chief Executives meeting in Washington, he faced kindred souls: rich Republicans who had managed big enterprises. Yet the second question from the audience was whether Romney's Mormon faith was hurting his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. He replied that about the only people who brought up his religion were members of the media, an answer that simply is untrue. Romney is asked about Mormonism wherever he goes. In my travels, I find his religious preference cited everywhere as the source of opposition to...

Quantum Politics By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, September 30, 2007 Candidates and their strategists always look for a way to get inside the head of the voter, especially one who is undecided or has specific negative opinions of a candidate. A candidate cannot win if his message isn't delivered in a way that connects and says, "I share your pain." One tool that has been used to perfect candidate messaging is dial-testing -- the continuous gathering of real-time feedback from a candidate's speech or debate performance. Focus groups are given hand-held devices to measure -- on a scale of 0...

About the only thing worse than painting yourself in a corner is doing it when the floor doesn’t need painting in the first place. So I was doubly disappointed a couple of days ago when Dr. James Dobson, a one-time child psychologist who has become a leading Christian activist, absolutely skewered presidential candidate Fred Thompson in what was to me a dazzling display of dumb. I’ve long admired and adored Dr. Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” and believe he’s a genius when it comes to kids. This week, in what was called “a private e-mail to friends,” the doctor proved...

It's August, and it's important to remember that four years ago, exactly, Howard Dean and Joe Lieberman were doing well -- and John Kerry was starting to fall apart. Still, punditry goes on, and, as such, here are my thoughts on three of the candidates ... 1. Mitt Romney - Some people think that video of him getting angry at the WHO radio host made him look bad. Not me. It made me like him even more. One of my criticisms of Romney has been that he seems a bit phony. In this clip, we got a glimpse of the...