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The story is largely set in Doylestown, one of Philly's oldest and most picturesque exurbs. It's a swing town in a swing area in a crucial swing state. As such, the political trends in Doylestown and the rest of Bucks County are pretty indicative of what's going on throughout Pennsylvania and the rest of the country.
The article is subscription-only on our website (so become a subscriber!), but I'm posting an edited excerpt below for the loyal readers of this blog.
Doylestown, like much of Bucks County , used to be deeply, proudly, Republican. "In my youth, in central Bucks County , I grew up without knowing any Democrats," James Michener wrote in Report of the County Chairman, his account of volunteering for John F. Kennedy in 1960. "My mother thought there might be some on the edge of town, but she preferred not to speak of them." Things began to change in 1992, when the recession that year pushed Bucks County toward Bill Clinton . In the following years, as the GOP increasingly became identified with the religious right , the county voted for Democrats for President. Yet until recently, Republicans controlled all the levers of local government.
A surge of Democratic activism in the past few years has turned Doylestown, and much of the county, from red to purple–and quite possibly to blue. In 2003 Republicans dominated the borough council 9-0; now it's 6-3 Democratic. After sending Republicans to Congress in every election since 1993, in 2006 Bucks County's 8th Congressional District elected Democrat Patrick Murphy , a 34-year-old Iraq War vet . In January there were 21,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats in Bucks. By early April, thanks to a massive voter-registration drive, Democrats outnumbered Republicans for the first time since 1978, when Democrats briefly held sway after Watergate .

news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON | Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, on Friday called on Hillary Clinton to drop out of the presidential race, saying there is no way the senator from New York could wrest the Democratic nomination from Barack Obama.
“She ought to withdraw, and she ought to be backing Senator Obama,” Leahy, an Obama supporter, said in an interview Friday with Vermont Public Radio
Saying Republican contender John McCain “has been making one gaffe after another (and) is getting a free ride,” Leahy said the sniping between Democrats hurt them more than anything the senator from Arizona had thrown their way.
Leahy was the first prominent superdelegate to call on Clinton to withdraw.
Clinton’s campaign, in a fundraising e-mail to supporters Friday, noted a pattern to calls for her to withdraw.
“Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination,” said the note, which made no mention of Leahy. “Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren’t doing it because they think we’re going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they’re reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win.”
With the two senators battling for support from voters and superdelegates in the coming primaries, Obama picked up a new endorsement Friday from an unexpected source: Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who had earlier said he would stay neutral until Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.
End sniping, Dean urges
WASHINGTON | The Democratic Party chief said Friday that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their supporters should avoid personal attacks because it could damage the party’s chances of winning the presidency.
Howard Dean also pushed superdelegates.
“There’s 800 of them, and 450 have already said who they’re for,” Dean said on CBS’ “The Early Show.” “I’d like the other 350 to say who they’re for … so we don’t have to take this into the convention.”

kansascity.com

The hot rumor on “The Hills” was always that Lauren Conrad had a sex tape — but who knew that it was Audrina who was the really naughty one all along? O. M. G.
TMZ obtained this snap of Audrina looking every bit the dirty schoolgirl, and taken, we hear, before “The Hills” and just after A-Pat graduated from high school. She’d done some bikini modeling, but decided to go the full Audi to have a go at Playboy. It wasn’t like she needed the money, as anyone who watches “The Hills” knows.
In a statement made through her rep, Audrina tells TMZ “I took these photos years ago when I was just out of high school and beginning to model. I was young and very trusting of others and I didn’t know to protect myself. It is a lesson learned, for myself, and hopefully for the young girls who look up to me.”
For the entire saucy set, check out WWTDD.com.

tmz.com

Since there is plenty of Green for St. Patrick’s Day, I’ll include the White and Checkered Flags to boot as well because here are my Top 3 Racing Weekend Moments of the Weekend
Green Flag- Let’s Go Racing!
This is ONLY the 2nd 1-2-3 Finish by the Same Organization in NASCAR History and the 1st Since the 1997 Daytona 500 as Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton cap off Richard Childress Racing’s 1st Ever 1-2-3 Finish at Bristol Motor Speedway Today.
White Flag- 1 To Go!
Lewis Hamilton vs. Kyle Busch: Best in the World
If Lewis Hamilton and Kyle Busch are both Champions This Season, there will be a very fierce argument on who is the Best In The World as far as Auto Racing is Concerned because this could be the Battle for the 2008 Driver of the Year.
Penske Wins Sebring
All Penske needs to win is LeMans and he would be the 1st Ever Team Principal to win Daytona,Indy, Sebring, and LeMans, each gems of Permenant Racing Circuits.
Even though St. Patrick’s Day is Tomorrow, at least this is my view of Overdrive St. Patrick’s Day Green White and Checkered.
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***UPDATED AT 8:40 AM***
Obviously many areas have already had showers and strong thunderstorms this morning. Heavy rain has also already fallen in a lot of areas. The bulk of the rain has moved north of the area, but additional thunderstorm development is expected through the moning in the area I have circled below. That region of development will shift east this afternoon and evening.
A serious flood threat remains across the Ozarks! We’ll have more on our potential for severe weather around 1 PM this afternoon.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! Remember to wear green so those folks who insist on pinching you…don’t. I am in need of a few folks to help me build an ark today - in some places you might need one or at least an umbrella. A heavy rain event will begin today (especially tonight) and last through Wednesday morning. Moisture started to increase across the area Sunday afternoon and it has continued to pour into the area. An approaching storm system will combine with that moisture and create the setup for our heavy rain.
Showers and thunderstorm can be expected on and off today areawide, however the heavy rain during the daylight hours today can be expected to the northwest of Interstate 44.

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Requiem, Mass. John Dufresne . Norton , $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-393-05790-4
In the latest from Dufresne (Love Warps the Mind a Little) novelist John’s newest manuscript doesn’t impress his girlfriend, Annick, who thinks “it doesn’t breathe.” So he goes back and rewrites it as a memoir: a book within a book. In it, Johnny and Audrey grow up in Requiem, Mass., with their unraveling mother, Frances, who believes her children were replaced by aliens and who bathes in gasoline. Their secretive truck driver father, Rainey, almost certainly has something odd going on down South. The book unfolds like a series of nesting dolls: John meanders around his coastal Florida home, writing his novel, visiting with friends and going on appointments for teaching jobs, while Johnny lives with his mother’s worsening condition, his father’s absences, his mother’s hospitalization and a momentous trip South. Then there are stories within the memoir within the story, including the one a woman tells about her friend, Ginger Rae, who talks of writing a neighbor’s suicide note, then claims it’s part of a story she herself is writing. John is a very amusing unreliable narrator, and Dufresne’s witty, sardonic take on life’s fictions leaps off the page. (July)

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Four-year-old Grace Butterworth’s eyes widened as the Naples 30th annual St. Patrick’s Day parade began strolling down the street Saturday.
Grace, who wore an oversized soft St. Patrick’s hat and a green beard, was among thousands of attendees decked in green enjoying a celebration of traditional Irish fare as 127 community organizations, businesses, school bands and groups marched in the parade, while scrambling to collect candy along 11th Avenue South during the parade.
Grace was at her first parade with her grandmother, Carol McKinnon, a Naples resident, who wore a cloverleaf boa. Grace, her mother, and Grace’s two brothers are visiting from Boston.
Smiling, she watched a clown and others dressed in green travel along the streets of Naples.
From St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Naples, they traveled north on Third Street South, then east on Fifth Avenue South and south on Eighth Street South to Crayton Cove.
In the front of the parade was Naples Mayor Bill Barnett, who said he enjoys the great atmosphere and attends regularly.
“It’s a great day to forget about the economy and all the controversy that you read about in the newspaper,” said Barnett, who wore an oversized green hat. “Today is a day that you are smiling whether you are Irish or not.”

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Can’t make it to the parade? 6News will have live coverage at 1 p.m. Monday on Sunflower Broadband Channel 6. Replays will air at 7 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, 10 a.m. Wednesday, 11 p.m. March 20, 9 p.m. March 21 and 11 a.m. March 22.
Rick Laughlin won’t be wearing green during the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, but he’ll be cruising in a green fire truck wearing a big smile.
Laughlin, 60, is retiring Monday after serving 30 years as a firefighter and paramedic with Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical.
“Personally, I can’t imagine having a better career,” he said. “It’s rewarding, and in so many ways you work with the best people possible; there’s a lot of camaraderie.”
He said it was fortuitous that he chose his retirement date for Monday.
“When I realized, I spoke to my battalion chief and I said it would be nice if I could drive the truck, since I’m Irish,” Laughlin said.
Typically, Laughlin is at Fire Station No. 2, which doesn’t participate in the parade, but Joe Hoelscher, Laughlin’s battalion chief, said a special adjustment was made.
Laughlin will be waving to a downtown crowd as the acting officer in a ladder truck for Station No. 5. The fire department, which always features its older green trucks, is one of 100 floats or vehicles in the parade. It’s a long-standing tradition in the community, and a great way to send off a firefighter, Hoelscher said.

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If you don’t get your fill of everything Irish this St. Patrick’s Day, a spoken-word event dedicated to the Emerald Isles comes up just nine days afterward.
South Mountain Community College’s main campus, 7050 S. 24th St., will be home to the 13th annual Storytelling Festival Wednesday, March 26 to Friday, March 28. The festival, put on by the SMCC Storytelling Institute, will feature presentations by Liz Weir, one of Ireland’s best-known storytellers.
“We’ve been offering a spring storytelling festival for over 10 years, and we always feature at least one well-known storyteller,” said teacher and event organizer Liz Warren, “although no one’s ever come this far before - all the way from Ireland.”
The highlights of the three-day festival come Thursday and Friday. March 27 is the Community Storytelling Festival, occurring 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. then again from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., which is free and open to the public. March 28 features a public performance by Weir, 7 to 9 p.m. in the school’s performance hall, called “Folktales from Ireland & Beyond.” This event is $10.
Weir also kicks off the event March 26 at 6:30 p.m. with a two-hour storytelling workshop called “Shortening the Road: Storytelling on the Path to Peace in Northern Ireland,” in which Weir will describe projects she has been involved with over the last 30 years. That workshop is $50.

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