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Salena Zito
Salena Zito is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page columnist. E-mail her at szito@tribweb.comSubscribe to Salena Zito RSS Article Feed.
Recent Articles
- Get Serious, Sarah - November 8, 2009
- Much will be said in the coming weeks about Sarah Palin and the Republican Party-- especially after the Democratic "upset" in the Congressional race in New York's 23rd...
- Mood Sours Towards Both Parties - November 1, 2009
- Would one-party domination in any combination of Tuesday's off-year elections really indicate where this country is going politically? You've got gubernatorial races in...
- Irate and Independent - October 25, 2009
- A poll of opinion polls shows Americans' attitudes are changing rapidly. They are less and less thrilled about the country's direction and Congress, according to Tom...
- The Gap Between Main Street and the Elites - October 18, 2009
- Remember the city mouse and the country mouse who exchanged visits? In the end, the gap between the cousins' worlds left both comfortable with their own choices and...
- Political Class Ignoring at Their Peril - September 20, 2009
- Two political dangers have emerged in recent months for Democrats, Republicans, and the media that covers both. Those are the dismissal of protests by all three, and...
- Being Bill Clinton - August 23, 2009
- Former President Bill Clinton quipped to a couple thousand liberal bloggers in Pittsburgh last week that the great thing about being a former president is that you can...
- GOP Should Show Patience As They Rebuild - August 16, 2009
- The Republican Party became Humpty Dumpy in August 2006 and, by the 2008 election, all the king's horses and men couldn't put the cracked party together again. The...
- Corzine Seeing Red in New Jersey - August 9, 2009
- Deep-Democrat-blue New Jersey is on a direct course to go Republican-red this fall, and it does not look like even Obama-esque hope and change can stop that. To the...
- Fall Eyes on Virginia - August 2, 2009
- Virginia will be the center of political attention this fall, thanks to the first statewide election in a battleground state since the 2008 presidential election. "Here...
- As Ohio Goes, So Goes the Nation? - July 26, 2009
- NEW WATERFORD, Ohio - If Ohio is the nation's political weathervane (and you can make a good case that it is), then a two-election trend toward Democrats may be...
- Appointees Face Rough 2010 - July 5, 2009
- Thanks to vacancies created by last fall's election, then-president-elect Barack Obama faced the first dramas of his administration: Finding credible, re-electable...
- Press Draws First Blood on Their Turf - June 28, 2009
- President Barack Obama made news at a press conference last week - by planting a question with a blogger, not by offering anything new in spite of taking his sharpest...
- Walpin Scandal Reflects Money's Role in Politics - June 21, 2009
- The upside to Gerald Walpin's firing as inspector general for the federal agency that oversees AmeriCorps is that he could appear in one of those "Organizing for...
- Washington's Defense Gap: Missile Funding - June 14, 2009
- Missile defense has been a political issue since President Reagan introduced his plan to win the arms race by rebuilding our arsenal while using technology to prevent a...
- Kasich v Strickland -- Ohio Center Stage Again - June 7, 2009
- Ohio has a political-identity crisis. Is it a "blue state," as demonstrated by Democrats' statewide wins in 2006 and 2008, or a "red state" that is just fed up with the...
- How Obama Impacts the Future of the Press - May 31, 2009
- Two weeks ago, ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper wrote in his "Political Punch" blog that the Obama White House has begun covering its own stories,...
- Specter's Folly -- Joe Sestak - May 26, 2009
- Word out of Washington is that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the political wise-guys from the Obama administration plan on "visiting with"...
- Anti-War Voices Lose Influence - May 17, 2009
- Will the last activist who hopes the antiwar cause will re-emerge as a central tenet of the Democratic Party please turn out the lights on the way out the door? Little...
- Sharp Left Turn on Intel - May 11, 2009
- All elections have consequences. The most dramatic consequence of President Barack Obama's election may be his inability to separate himself from his party's base --...
- Boehner's Job: Recapture 'Squandered' GOP Brand - May 10, 2009
- WASHINGTON -- John Boehner says it was at his family's tavern in Cincinnati that he learned all the skills he needs for his job as House minority leader. "Great food....
- GOP Obit Premature - May 3, 2009
- Arlen Specter switched parties for one and only one reason: to save his career. No principle was involved; there was no "the party left me" moment. It was pure,...
- Turnout Will Drive 2010 Pennsylvania Senate Race - April 19, 2009
- As with anything involving Pennsylvania politics, it's complicated. Much of Pennsylvania's 2010 U.S. Senate race will depend on turnout in the primary and general...
- Glenn Beck, Unfiltered - April 12, 2009
- In other words, he forgets to use his "inside" voice. "His success is pretty simple," said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse...
- Card Check, Plan B, and 2010 - April 5, 2009
- Card-check is dead. Although organized labor and business will passionately disagree, the reality is that when Sen. Arlen Specter, R- Pa., jumped off the...
- GOP Eyes the Mid-Term - March 29, 2009
- Five minutes after Barack Obama took the oath in January and began signing executive orders and expanding government, those same pundits began lining up the Senate...
- Specter Welcomes All New Rivals - March 22, 2009
- Almost instantly, supply-sider Pat Toomey dropped his plan to run for governor and turned back to a re-match with Specter, who he very nearly upset in 2004. With "tea...
- The Faithful and Obama - March 15, 2009
- Obama won over 43 percent of voters who attend religious services regularly, contrasted with the 39 percent who supported John Kerry four years earlier, according to...
- Conservatives Energized by 'Ideas' at Conference - March 1, 2009
- "Conservatives certainly have more a lot more energy, creativity and ideas this year opposing the Obama agenda than they did supporting the Bush administration," said...
- Obama's Dogma? - February 22, 2009
- The Republicans claim the stimulus package contains too much spending and not enough stimulus. All the Democrats have to say (whether accurate or not) is, "Your failed...
- Unstimulated - February 15, 2009
- In 1920, before the Great Depression hit, our country was moving from an agricultural economy into an industrial economy. Today, we are an information/service economy,...
- Gang of Seven 2.0 - February 1, 2009
- One way, University of St. Louis professor Joel Goldstein says, is for GOP congressmen to think of ways to use the stimulus package to strengthen the role of state...
- Handicapping 2010 - January 25, 2009
- However, with Senate vacancies created by Vice President Joe Biden (Delaware), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (New York) and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar...
- Trouble for Harry Reid? - January 18, 2009
- Herzik said Reid is not beloved in Nevada: "He is powerful and respected, but he also has very harsh critics in the state ... even among Democrats." Until the last...
- Specter’s Dilemma - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Live - January 13, 2009
- Bipartisan Hopes - January 11, 2009
- As governor of Texas, Bush had a near-flawlessly congenial relationship with Democrats in the state legislature. That was not the case when he went to Washington. ...
- Our Celebrity in Chief - January 4, 2009
- A number of our presidents have been celebrity-like individuals with name recognition and fame, notes Lara Brown, a professor of political science at Villanova. "The...
- Pennsylvania is Still in Play - December 28, 2008
- Eight years ago, Pennsylvania had two Republican U.S. senators, Specter and Rick Santorum, with Republican Tom Ridge as governor. Its congressional delegation and state...
- Howard Dean's Empty Hand - December 14, 2008
- "While Kennedy provided Sen. Obama with the imprimatur of a legitimate Democratic candidate, one in particular who was more liberal rather than centrist, Gov. Dean was...
- The Good, Bad & Ugly of Card-Check - December 7, 2008
- Under card-check, not so much: If a majority of employees sign a union card, then the union becomes the bargaining unit. No more six-week campaigns, no more...
- Biden's True Grit - November 30, 2008
- When Siegel lost his son in a car accident in 1974, in circumstances similar to Biden's own family tragedy, the newly elected Delaware senator was there for him. He told...