This book is about politics, both local and national, and how each impacts the other. The city of Scranton is itself a hotbed of partisan politics and, at other times, a home to apathy and antipathy. The host of “Hard Ball,” Chris Mathews, talks about ordinary citizens “from Scranton to Oshkosh.” In the last couple presidential elections, Scranton has had an outsized effect because it is the hometown of Joe Biden and was the nearby summer vacation home of Hillary Rodham Clinton.