Ain't no boosterism like Scranton boosterism

DENVER -- Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds Evie Ralfako McNulty first unfurled her acrylic banner -- with SCRANTON, PA on one side, and [HEARTS] HILLARY on the other -- at the 1996 convention in Chicago, when the first lady's ties to Northeastern Pennsylvania were little more than a curio for local historical societies and Clinton trivia contests.

Scranton boosterism was once such an unlikely premise that the city was a perfect fit when the NBC comedy "The Office" sought a famously dull locale. Now, both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden trumpet their roots in the working-class, white-ethnic industrial city as evidence of a common touch.

For the first time in a while, it seems like everybody wants to be from Scranton, exalting a punchline municipality into shorthand for blue-collar values. When Hillary Clinton returned to her maternal homestead in March, claiming an ancestral seat as a hometown before the Pennsylvania primary, a local high-school glee club welcomed her with an earnestly-delivered performance of "Ain't No Party Like a Scranton Party," a song that began as "Office" farce.

"We're the epicenter," McNulty said from the convention floor as she awaited Clinton’s speech on Tuesday night. "Everybody thought it was 'The Office' that made it special. You didn't realize what kind of homegrown, homespun people come from here."

Tonight's nomination of Biden, who was born in Scranton and lived there until moving with his parents to Delaware at age ten, does highlight some of the tenuousness of Clinton's claims to roots in the city, McNulty acknowledged.

“This guy dug his dirt in Scranton," she said. “Hillary we like to say is a favorite daughter -- it's just the association that makes us proud.”

Someone caught McNulty's eye, and she turned to wave at a man wearing a suit and earpiece as he walked down the aisle towards the stage.

"There's another guy, a Secret Service," McNulty said. "He's from Scranton."