Will the national news media provide balanced coverage of the Democrats and Obama and the Republicans and McCain this year? To answer we start with two premises, then toss in the wild card.

Premise One: Pennsylvania’s 21 Electoral votes are no longer solid Red. It is one of the states the Democrats must win, but which the GOP, if push came to shove, could do without. Traditionally, Pennsylvania’s politics as memorialized by James Carville, is the two islands of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh surrounded by Alabama. A recent shift of Philadelphia’s bedroom suburban counties from Republican to Democratic now tilts Pennsylvania from Purple to Blue.

Premise Two: The media is routinely accused of being infatuated with Barak Obama. Recall Saturday Night Live’s now much acclaimed skit. Hillary Clinton continuously carped about Obama’s media-induced Teflon protection. No matter what she threw, nothing stuck. Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s pushing the proverbial envelope slowed the Obama Express ever so slightly, but the train kept on schedule.

Now let’s throw in the wild card. Setting aside Democrat Eliot Spitzer’s resignation as New York governor, or the scandals besieging Ohio’s Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann, the major Democratic scandal appears to be brewing in Pennsylvania. Labeled "Bonusgate," the controversy swirls around publicly appropriated "slush funds" that each House and Senate caucus controls. The House Democratic Caucus allegedly paid over $1.85 million in bonuses to legislative employees for political work resulting in the Democrats regaining the majority in 2006.

Rumors are flying about the State Capitol on how far Attorney General Tom Corbett, (who in the interest of full disclosure is the only statewide Republican, seeking re-election) will hit with indictments. The scuttlebutt is there will be obstruction of justice and similar charges striking at a Democratic coverup. At least three Democratic legislators are reportedly in the bulls-eye. The rumor mill was stoked by one of the stae’s top columnists, Pittsburgh’s Tribune-Review Brad Bumstead, quoting the Democrats’ counsel, William Chadwick, justifying the high legal bills. "This is an investigation that is looking at large numbers of people in very diverse activities — political-campaign activities, bonus activities, cover-up, obstruction," according to the Democratic attorney.

I checked with sources in both the House Democratic and Republican caucuses to see how far up the latter these charges will go, testing my hypothesis as to House Democrat most probable to go down. The Democratic response was stolid. The Republican response leads me to believe that first, they really don’t have any clue to which shoe will drop, and secondly, there’s not much they can do until it actually happens. If anything there was, per Yogi Berri, deja vu all over again.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly, the second-highest paid, and the largest staff-supported state legislature, is no stranger to scandal. 2006 was a high-water mark due to the GOP self-inflicted Pay Raise scandal, approving a massive pay raise at 2 AM without notice or even floor debate right before recess, being yet more gist for Lincoln Steffen’s mill.

So what? may be your response. But the reality is (and has been since Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville) Pennsylvania is the vest-pocket edition of America. What happens in Pennsylvania is, in reality, a political test-tube for what happens across the nation.

Which leads us back to Square One. Will Obama’s coronation by the national news media continue unabated?

To understand the press, you must properly characterize it. The press is not liberal, so much as it is deontologic, that is, idealistic. It expects people to behave the way they’re suppose to, not as they actually do. And who’s to disagree, this is what the press is suppose to do — hold us to a higher standard.

And the press are "infracanineophiles," which as my high school English teacher delighted in emphasizing is Latin for people who root for the underdog. When McCain was the perceived underdog against Romney on 2008 or Bush in 2000, there was absolutely nothing wrong he could do. Bush, particularly in South Carolina, was the big, bad guy. But now McCain is the presumptive nominee, he couldn’t get positive ink if he danced an Irish jig on his fingertips.

Obama, on the other hand, can do no wrong. He walks on water. He is JFK and MLK all wrapped up one. Just look at how the press covers his fund raising success. Despite a sizable dip in the April numbers, the press spin remains that he’s far superior to McCain (despite McCain having his best month ever). And when the RNC reports it had the best "one month" in over two years, the press portrays it by expressing pity on the impoverished DNC "David" having to fight so hard against the Goliath RNC.

Even when it comes to the Internet, Democrats, MoveOn and ActBlue get all the limelight, while the GOP success is kept in the dark. Do you see any mention of GOP onDemand? Not even the national Republican blogs picked up the news. The Washington Post told us, in effect, go jump in lake — that GOP onDemand not only rivals, but is far superior to MoveOn, is of no consequence. It threatens their apparently preordained conclusion Obama will dominate the Election. In fact, I’m beginning to think to why bother to hold an election in the first place. The national news media has already cast its vote. Who are we, the voters, to get in the way?

So what happens if and when major House Democrats are indicted in Pennsylvania? Will it impact Obama? Will the voters become upset at the Ds as they are now upset at the Rs.

I predict what will happen in 2008 will be the same as in 2006. The local press throughout Pennsylvania, from Pittsburgh throughout the central portion of the state will hammer home Bonusgate, just as they did about the Pay Raise scandal. But the Philadelphia press, which this week sent a TV "reporter" to do a live story in Hollywood shot on who won Dancing with the Stars or American Idol or My Favorite Moose or some other silly "reality" show, will downplay the story, buried deep inside the Op-Ed page. The majority of Pennsylvania’s voters who reside in the Philadelphia media market will not be aware of the tempest sweeping across the balance of the state. All they will see is Obama’s coronation, the well-deserved triumph over the big bad Bush bogey-man.

It is deja vu, all over again.