In a must-read piece from the weekend, Wes Allison of the St. Petersburg Times headed back to Scranton to take the pulse of the blue collar that was in many ways the epicenter of the 2008 presidential cycle:

SCRANTON, Pa. — Pat McMullen is sipping a cocktail in a cozy booth inside Pat McMullen's Irish pub just east of downtown, an easy stop after work to talk politics.

"I didn't think he'd be good," McMullen is saying.

"No, you didn't," his wife, Margaret, affirms.

"I wasn't on the bandwagon," McMullen says. "He came from nowhere. A lot of people told me, This guy's going to be the one. I said, I dunno."

Yet, like many of their neighbors, McMullen, 62, reluctantly voted for Barack Obama in November, setting aside concerns that he lacked substance and experience because he just couldn't vote for the Republican, not after the past eight years.

Now, as Obama finishes his first 100 days in office, the McMullens and many other former Obama skeptics in this working-class town in northeastern Pennsylvania consider themselves fans, won over by young president's willingness to explain his ideas to the American people, and the simple fact that he appears to be trying his best to right the listing U.S. economy — even if they have little to show for his efforts so far.

Allison goes on to report that there is concern among many in Scranton that Obama is trying to do too much, but also that "there is little evidence the attacks by conservative commentators and Republican politicians that Obama is driving the nation to socialism are sticking."