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Panelists talk politics

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Contact:
Dr. Melanie Blumberg
724-983-5720
Blumberg@calu.edu

March 3, 2010

A team of political experts will reflect on the first year of the Obama presidency and look ahead to Pennsylvania's gubernatorial, congressional and Senate races in a panel presentation at 7 p.m. March 16 in Room 110, Eberly Science and Technology Center.

Political commentator Jon Delano, of KDKA-TV, will serve as moderator for The Audacity of Hope: A Reality Check.

Presented by the American Democracy Project at Cal U, the program is free and open to the public.

Panelists are:

•       William C. Binning, chair emeritus of the Department of Political Science at Youngstown State University, Ohio.

•       Louis Jacobson, staff writer for the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com website and a contributing writer for PoliticsPA.

•       Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and the graduate program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University, New York.

  • Daniel Shea, director of the Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College.

"During the presidential campaign, President Obama made an enormous number of promises - more than 500, to be exact - and he's fully kept about one-fifth of them," says panelist Louis Jacobson, citing the "Obameter" feature of the PolitiFact website.

"Another one-fifth are broken or stalled. The rest are in between. So whether he's stuck to his promises or not is a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty.

"Pennsylvania will be a focal point of the 2010 election," Jacobson adds, and panelist William C. Binning agrees.

"Because of the economy, the political environment for incumbents in Pennsylvania is toxic," Binning says. "The hopeful Republicans might get tripped up in 2010, because of the marital problems with their reluctant Tea Party partners."

The American Democracy Project (ADP) is a multi-campus initiative focused on higher education's role in preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens.

 Co-sponsors of this ADP event at California University are the Office of the President, the Office of Academic Affairs/Provost, the Office of University Relations, the Department of History and Political Science, and the Student Government Association.