Panelists' Biographies

Jon Delano is the money and politics editor for KDKA-TV, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Business Times, a contributor to Pittsburgh Magazine and an adjunct professor of public policy and politics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. After 14 years on Capitol Hill in Washington and about the same number of years on local television, Delano has developed a solid reputation as the guy in Pennsylvania to turn to for even-handed on-air analysis of political and governmental events and for a quick quip or sound bite on what exactly it all means to the average citizen. A political analyst for KDKA-TV (CBS) since 1994, Jon became the station's first money and politics editor in September 2001. In addition to daily reporting on government, politics, and economic issues, he also hosts a Sunday morning public affairs program called The Sunday Business Page.

William C. Binning
William Binning holds a Ph.D. in government from the University of Notre Dame, and is professor emeritus of political science at Youngstown State University, where he taught for 38 years. In addition to co-authoring the Encyclopedia of American Politics: Political Parties and Elections, Dr. Binning has collaborated on numerous conference papers and book chapters pertaining to political parties, campaigns and elections, and campaign conduct. He is currently writing about third parties and American presidential elections. Dr. Binning has a distinguished record of community service and has served as a regional liaison to Ohio governors James Rhodes, George Voinovich, and Robert Taft.            

Louis Jacobson
Louis Jacobson is a staff writer for PolitiFact, a website of the St. Petersburg Times of Florida that fact-checks statements by politicians and pundits and tracks progress on promises made by President Barack Obama. He also writes frequently on Pennsylvania politics for PoliticsPA.com. Jacobson has served as deputy editor of Roll Call and as founding editor of its legislative wire service, CongressNow. He serves as a contributing editor at National Journal magazine, where he spent more than a decade covering politics, policy and lobbying. In 2004, Jacobson originated the Out There column on politics in the states, which has run in Roll Call and stateline.org and which won four awards between 2006 and 2009 from Capitolbeat, the association of state capitol editors and reporters. He also was a contributing writer to The Almanac of American Politics and has done political handicapping of state legislatures for both The Rothenberg Political Report and The Cook Political Report.

Costas Panagopoulos
Costas Panagopoulos is assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and the graduate program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University. He is a research associate at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University, where he completed a post doctoral fellowship. Dr. Panagopoulos earned his Ph.D. in Politics from New York University.   He is published in several academic journals, author of The Rules:  Governing Elections in the American States and Virtual Parties:  Investigating the Online Presence of American Political Parties, and editor of Lights, Camera, Nominate:  National Political Conventions in the Media Age. Dr. Panagopoulos provides political commentary and analysis for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Guardian, Village Voice, Newsday, CNN, CBS Evening News, NBS Nightly News, BusinessWeek TV, FOX News, and BBC Television.   

Daniel M. Shea
Daniel M. Shea is professor of political science and director of the Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College.  His research areas include political parties, elections, voter behavior, and congressional dynamics. He has written or edited more than a dozen books, and scores of articles and chapters. A few of his most recent books are New Party Politics: From Jefferson and Hamilton to the Information Age (2005), Campaign Mode: Strategic Vision in Congressional Elections (2008), the Fountain of Youth: Strategies and Tactics to Mobilize America's Young Voters (2007), and Living Democracy (2009). He resides in Meadville, Pa., with his wife, Christine, and their three children.