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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.

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.”

Bitter: the gift that keeps on giving TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito John Brabender, a D.C.-based media strategist, put up the first "bitter" ad to be used in a congressional race -- for a Republican. "Barack Obama's statement about the small towns of Pennsylvania and the entire middle America for this cycle is the gift that you can use all year long," Brabender said. He said that you could say it is the gift that keeps on giving. Brabender's client Matt Shaner is in a tight Republican primary race to succeed retiring John Peterson in the biggest piece of congressional geography...

Democratic voters in northwestern Pennsylvania will participate Tuesday in something they haven’t seen in many years: a competitive party primary election for the U.S. House. Democratic strategists hope this will lead to something they have sought without success for years, namely a serious general election challenge to veteran Republican Rep. Phil English in the marginally Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District. When 3rd District Democrats go to the polls to pick between Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in the state’s competitive presidential primary, they also will choose among four Democrats who are vying to oppose...

McCain says he is the candidate of hope TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Full text of interview with Sen. John McCain and reporter Salena Zito: You have been around a lot of small towns in Pennsylvania and the country, Sen. Barack Obama's remarks seem to have had an effect in Western Pennsylvania. What are your thoughts about the regular folk that Sen. Obama referred to in his remarks? I cannot understand why Sen. Obama would have ever believed that the small towns in Pennsylvania and across America are anything but patriotic, dedicated, hard working people whose fundamental values have nothing to...

Burden of proof -- Clinton counts on delegate math By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, April 13, 2008 Every other story written by journalists across the country gives a spreadsheet of reasons why Hillary Clinton should step out of the Democrats' campaign. Yet in the public's eye, there she stands as though she has not a care in the world. One reason may be that the party's super-delegates who remain uncommitted have an unspoken burden of proof to determine whether this race goes on or not. So far, they have not exercised their superpowers.

God, guns and Obama TRIBUNE-REVIEW By: Salena Zito On Friday it was reveled that Sen. Barack Obama told wealthy San Franciscans last Sunday that small-town Pennsylvanians and Midwesterners "cling to guns or religion" because they are "bitter" about their economic status. By today in Muncie, Ind., Obama acknowledged that he "didn't say it as well as I should have."

Man says Clinton supporters less educated TRIBUNE REVIEW By Salena Zito Nearly 800 students and supporters of Hillary Clinton packed the Hopewell Area High School auditorium yesterday to hear the former first lady's proposals to strengthen the U.S. military. With the exception of one man, all seemed to be enthusiastic supporters. Chuck Grawley, 51, an instructor at two local colleges, held his 8-month-old daughter Emily while waiting for the event to begin. Grawley was not there to see Clinton. He was there to see the crowd. "Statistically and empirically, the people in this room are less educated and less informed...

Obama advance: 'Get me more white people' POLITICO Ben Smith From the account in Carnegie Mellon's paper, the Tartan, of a Michelle Obama event in Pittsburgh: While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.” “I didn’t know they...

An error of judgment: Penn is out TRIBUNE-REVIEW BY: Salena Zito Hillary Clinton's chief strategist and pollster Mark Penn has made like Elvis and left the building, a little more than two weeks before the Pennsylvania April 22nd primary.

Rendell-Casey, Round 2 By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, April 6, 2008 To win Pennsylvania, Barack Obama must pull off a "Missouri" -- that is, do what he did in the Show Me State: win a handful of heavily populated, liberal-centric counties and call it a day. Ironically, that is what Ed Rendell (a Hillary Clinton supporter) did to Bob Casey (an Obama supporter) in Pennsylvania's 2002 Democrat gubernatorial primary.

The enemy within TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito Things got a little eerie in Erie today. At Hillary Clinton's campaign office in West Erie Plaza, a young man who told workers that he came to volunteer for the New York senator turned out to be a Barack Obama volunteer. According to the Clinton staff in Erie, the young man in question was leery of signing the mandatory sign-in sheet that all volunteers fill out when they come into the office. But after some time, he agreed, but his sketchy behavior, asking the volunteers if they were "cutting turf" (campaign lingo for...

Pennsylvania 'absolutely critical' for Clinton campaign, aide says By Salena Zito and David M. Brown TRIBUNE-REVIEW Saturday, March 8, 2008 Winning the Pennsylvania primary on April 22 is "absolutely critical" to Hillary Clinton's hope of overtaking Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, a top Clinton aide said Friday. Clinton will visit Pennsylvania on Monday and Tuesday, with campaign stops in Scranton, Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Former President Bill Clinton will be stumping for his wife on Tuesday in Pittsburgh, but the campaign did not immediately provide details about that visit. Asked whether Clinton must win Pennsylvania to...

ERIE, Pa. - Mike Batchelor invited the heads of 46 charities into his downtown office for one-on-one meetings to personally deliver the news. Nearby, on a small table, sat a box of tissues. And then he proceeded: A donor had given a staggering $100 million to the Erie Community Foundation, and all of the charities would receive a share. That was when the tears began to flow — and the mystery began — in this struggling old industrial city of 102,000 on Lake Erie, where the donor is known only as "Anonymous Friend." Batchelor, president of the Erie Community Foundation,...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two people are expected to be charged Wednesday in connection with the bizarre 2003 case in which a pizza deliveryman died after a collar bomb attached to him exploded, CNN has learned. Brian Wells died August 28, 2003, in Erie, Pennsylvania, after he claimed gunmen grabbed him, locked the bomb around his neck and ordered him to rob a bank. Police detained him following the robbery, and the device exploded as he waited on the pavement. A bomb squad was en route to the scene but did not arrive in time. Authorities have not said whether they...

Erie cleric 'used as pawn' in Russian church rift An ailing elderly Erie bishop is being drawn into what could be a new schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. A group that wants to establish a new church authority claims Bishop Daniel of Erie is on their side but is being held under "house arrest." But Bishop Daniel, 76, who uses only a first name like other bishops in his church, said Thursday he wants nothing to do with efforts to split that church. "I am against it," he said. Bishop Daniel spoke to the Erie Times-News in his home...

National Guard Activated in Weather-Beaten N.Y. By Sgt. Sara Wood, USA American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2006 – The New York governor has called up members of the New York Army and Air National Guard for state active duty in western New York following record-breaking, lake-effect snowfall in the region. The Guard has been assigned to provide Humvees and drivers to the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., to provide emergency transportation for medical personnel and to the Buffalo Fire Department to transport emergency medical technicians and evacuate patients as needed, said Army Lt. Col. Paul Fanning,...

CLEVELAND - The newest update to a Lake Erie management plan predicts global warming will lead to a steep drop in water levels over the next 64 years, a change that could cause the lake's surface area to shrink by up to 15 percent.The drop could undo years of shoreline abuse by allowing water to resume the natural coastal circulation that has become blocked by structures, experts said.Updated annually, the plan is required by the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada. It is developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environment Canada and state and...