Politicians and their campaigns are using e-mail and Web social-networking technology like never before. But sometimes, well, enough can be enough and inboxes can split at their seams, as John McCain's Lancaster County team found out this week. One of the presumptive Republican......

Things are looking pretty dismal for John McCain, no?And I'm not talking about just here in Pennsylvania, where opinion polls show him trailing Barack Obama by as many as 12 points in the popular vote.I mean nationally as well, especially among voters hit hard by rising gas pric......

If you live in the 16th Congressional District, chances are good you picked up the phone at some point in the last week or so only to hear U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts' voice. "I am currently conducting a live, toll-free town hall meeting over the telephone," a recorded mes......

Greetings, and welcome to the Weird Conspiracy Theory edition of Politically Speaking. Our first issue this Friday: Franklin & Marshall's "gap-year" program. A conservative commentator named Warner Todd Huston — you'll find his stuff on various right-wing blo......

When you think of Reader's Digest, you think of tales of inspiration. Low-cal recipes. Advice on how to spruce up your tulip garden. Maybe a corny joke or two. You probably wouldn't expect a stiff beat-down of one of this state's most powerful politicians. But there it is, right inside ......

The proposal to award cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, to some 250,000 state government and public school retirees would cost an estimated $10.4 billion over 20 years. And that's too big a burden. So says Richard C. Dreyfuss. He's an actuary and retired d......

fWe're sort of in the doldrums of the local political season, no? There's no better time, I figure, to check on those predictions I made for 2008. Let's see how we're doing. 1.) State Sen. Gibson E. Armstrong is retiring at the end of this year, and I p......

Run, Hillary, run. That's the loud refrain from Hillary Clinton's probable convention delegates and potential at-large delegates here in Lancaster County amid calls for her to step aside following poor showings in this week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "I ......

So the Republican Party here in Pennsylvania will try to woo back, with phone calls, every last GOP voter who switched parties so they could vote in the Democratic presidential primary. My advice? Don't expect too much. And get ready for an earful. Folks such as ...

It's getting nasty out there, folks. How nasty? Listen to this: A 75-year-old county woman writes a letter to editor of this newspaper sharply criticizing one of the presidential candidates. She gets her letter published, and later that night the phone rings. On the other end of th......

The kids are jazzed about this year's presidential election, or so we keep hearing, and John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are doing their best to court them. By squeezing in appearances on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart and MTV's "Choose or Lose." By using the Web like ne......

What a week for Democrats. Especially those in Pennsylvania. Their voter rolls swelled to more than 4 million statewide — a threshold no party has crossed before — at the same time the Republican registration shrunk.

Barack Obama, Hillary ......

Get this: Up in Camp Hill, the 62-year-old mayor, who is a lifelong Republican, switched parties so he could vote for Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary. Turns out, he's among tens of thousands of Republicans across the state who have done so since January. At ......

Pennsylvania shmennsylvania. OK, those weren't U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's exact words. But to those who read a memo from his campaign this week, they seem to accurately reflect the Illinois Democrat's feelings about the Keystone State. "Now that Mississip......

Here's a good one: I went to a fight and a presidential race broke out. Bada-bing, bada-boom. But seriously folks, this Democratic race for president is getting ugly. How ugly? Did you hear about the two guys — brothers-in-law no less — who got into a fight over ...

State Rep. John Perzel dropped by the New Era on a swing through the midstate Thursday. The fiery Philadelphia Republican and former House speaker chatted about his plan to put as many as 10,000 more police on the streets statewide, and he shed more light on his artful coup over Democrats last ......

So you're a Turner Classic Movies fan. And, being a nondigital Comcast subscriber, you're angry that to watch Clark Gable and John Wayne you've got to drive down to Comcast, pick up one of those black boxes, install it — and, yes, eventually pay another $2 a month for it. Is that any w......

If you're paying attention to the race for president — and it's kind of hard not to — you've surely heard lots of talk about superdelegates. Who are they? Where'd they come from? And, most importantly, who have they committed to supporting, Barack Obama......

The county Democrats, who meet on Saturday to endorse candidates for the Legislature, see this year as a good chance as any to win the seat held by Republican Sen. Gib Armstrong since 1985. They just need someone to run for it. "We are, frankly, still hoping a candida......

Both Greg Sahd and Lloyd Smucker are party people, Sahd being a veteran of GOP campaigning and Smucker an elected member of the Republican State Committee. Therefore, both know the value and importance of uniting behind one candidate through an endorsement. But......

Members of the Lancaster County GOP meet Tuesday night, and if they're serious about delivering an endorsement for state Senate, former treasurer and Republican Party veteran Greg Sahd appears to hold an advantage over the three other Republicans, insiders say. Now, I kn......

You can expect a bruising primary in the race for Sen. Gibson Armstrong's seat, with at least one Republican — and maybe more — promising to get on the April 22 ballot with or without the GOP's blessing. Naturally, you can expect a bruising contest for president in ......

Smile, folks. If you're able to read this, you've almost survived 2007, a year chockfull of political suspense, intrigue and, yes, skullduggery — from the eruption of the Capitol "bonusgate" scandal in January to Pete Shaub's courthouse resignation in February, from the s......

Politics is an ugly, messy thing. You know that. I know that. Anyone who's popped in on a county commissioners meeting during the last four years certainly knows that. But 2008 offers a chance for a fresh start and an opportunity to, well, clamp down on some of the mud alread......

Pennsylvania's primary is more than four months away, but we can tell a little bit about who Lancaster County is supporting for president by following the money. And it's the Democrats. By a hair. Of the $47,959 we've shelled out to presidential candidates, 52 percent, ......

State Rep. John Perzel was in town this afternoon. No, he was not meeting with those migrant Lancaster County farm workers he once infamously said make as much dough as the legislator and his poor fellow lawmakers. The Philadelphia Republican, whose unflinching defense of th......

There's a great scene in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" when our maligned hero struts up to Violet and says, "Thanks for the Christmas card you sent me." "I didn't send you a Christmas card, Charlie Brown," she scoffs. "Don't you know sarcasm ......

Who is this Ron Paul guy? The eccentric Texan wants to make gold and silver legal currency in a "new gold standard," and thinks the federal government should simply butt out of everything from levying taxes to fighting drugs to regulating abortion. Oh, and did we......

Take a look at these numbers, will you? See if you can spot the trend. 68. 63. 61. 58. Yeah. That was pretty easy. Whatever that number represents, it's in decline. Slipping. Losing steam, gradually but surely. So what is it? The percentage of Lancaster Co......

If I scribbled down the name Gary Kurkner in the context of the Lancaster County Coroner's Office, would you know who I meant? How about G Kerknur? Or George Gary Cirkner? Yeah. You probably would. You'd know I'm talking about Dr. G. Gary Kirchner, th......

Here we go again. When President Bush was speaking in Lancaster County earlier this month, he defended his veto of a proposed expansion of the popular government health insurance program SCHIP by claiming the following: "It is estimated by — here's the th......

First there was the Bank of Nigeria e-mail scam — you know, the one about a wealthy guy who needed your help moving his millions to America. Then came the conspiracy about the federal government placing a 5-cent tax on every e-mail you send, and another warning of kidney thefts in hotel r......

Conspiracy or coincidence? That's what Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who writes The New York Times blog "The Caucus" wants to know about President Bush's decision to pick Gerry Beane to ask the first question during his q-and-a session in Lancaster C......

One last word about Rick Santorum and that's it for a while, OK? Here goes: Forget everything the former U.S. senator told us two weeks ago before his visit to Lancaster about, you know, not being interested in running for office in the near future. Why? Because it's bunk.......

Guy walks into a swim meet. Doesn't know anybody. Doesn't have kids of his own. Doesn't even live within a hundred miles of this particular pool. But ever so discreetly, he pulls out a video camera and hides it under a towel. Shoots 30 minutes of footage — all close-ups of cro......