Category: Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch || By

In the spirit of yesterday's Almanac, we're initiating a new feature between now and the April 22 primary called the Hardscrabble Mon Valley Watch.

I'll be looking for examples of national political pundits who do the best job of working "gritty, hardscrabble, steel mill" images into their stories.

Send me your favorites. Here are some to get you started.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Which is to say: Pennsylvania ain't Ohio. I've split my born days between the states; trust me on this one. You can't just graft the Ohio campaign narrative of working-class anger over lost industrial jobs onto Pennsylvania. Sure, that gritty anger still flares in Mon Valley steel towns, but out this way, not so much. In 1970, one in four Philly jobs was industrial; now it's one in 20. Rust Belt demise is old, old news here. We're through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. What we want to know is which new strategy can best propel us in a modern economy.

From the National Post (Canada):

Still, the state remains a political bellwether, with a mix of conservative blue-collar Democrats from the mine and mill towns in the hard coal country of the northeast and the iron and steel belt of the southwest.

From Newsweek. I forgot to work in Luke Ravenstahl yesterday:

At the Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church, on Polish Hill in Pittsburgh, they can't afford a janitor anymore. The ladies of the parish volunteer, swabbing the tile floors and polishing the mahogany pews. They are a familiar Pittsburgh type: the wry, forthright, steel-willed wives of hardworking, shot-and-beer men ...

Polish Hill is only one of many Pittsburghs. There are no steel mills left. The largest employers include medical centers, the University of Pittsburgh, PNC Bank and Mellon Financial Corp. Pitt and Carnegie Mellon have spawned a fertile digital culture to match the medical one; programmers, painters and poets are flocking to stately old neighborhoods. A symbol of this change is the city's mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, who is all of 28 years old.