Both are well-known pundits, campaign directors and former presidential advisors. The hook, of course, is that they're married, yet Carville is a Democrat while Matalin is a Republican.

Years ago, I read a book they co-authored called "All's Fair: Love, War and Running for President." It recounts their experiences in 1992, when Carville was directing Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, and Matalin was working for President Bush's re-election.

It's a very entertaining read, and I highly recommend it. One thing that blew my mind was how committed they both were to their respective campaigns. Actually, that didn't surprise me so much as the fact that they were able to maintain a relationship and get married afterward.

I don't think that their purported commitment to their respective campaigns was an exaggeration, either. I've been around campaign workers enough to know the extent to which a political campaign -- particularly at the presidential level -- can take over your life.

You simply can't work on a campaign at the level where they were in 1992 without being willing to throw yourself into it with an almost masochistic intensity. The part about the book I remember most vividly is Matalin's description of how devastated she was after Bush's defeat, and how much she utterly loathed Carville at that moment.

Yet despite their continued involvement with the upper echelons of their respective national parties, they've remained married for more than a decade.

I can't help wonder if the political tension helps fuel ... You know what? I'm worried that sentence was going to end up someplace kinda creepy. Let's just drop it and walk away from it, OK?

Anyway, they're having separate meetings with the press before their talk. I wonder if that's a mutual arrangement they've worked out, so as not to tip each other off about what their respective party operatives are up to. Or maybe it's just one more way they've lasted all of these years of marriage without trying to throttle each other.

Oh yeah, I should mention that the Manufacturer's Association of South Central Pennsylvania is sponsoring the appearance. A couple of years back, I covered another speech the association sponsored. It was Newt Gingrich at the Pullo Center at Penn State York. Say what you will about the guy, he turned out to be quite a speaker.

Mike Smeltzer, the association's executive director, said they've already sold more than 1,000 tickets for the Carville/Matalin speech. But damned if I could find anybody planning to attend when I was working on the story this week.

I was kind of surprised to find out that neither county Democratic Chairman Mike Johnson nor Republican Chairman A. Carville "Peck" Foster was planning to attend. Although maybe I shouldn't be. The cost for an individual ticket is $100. Smeltzer said that a lot of the ticket sales are to companies that buy an entire table for a bunch of their people.

I'm looking forward to hearing both speakers, but I'm particularly interested in hearing what Carville has to say. He's been supporting Hillary Clinton in her bid for the presidency. That's not surprising, given his long personal history with the Clintons.

What I'm wondering about is whether he'll do any stumping for her. In light of the fact that Pennsylvania's already held its primary (which Clinton won), I see no practical reason for him to do that.

I assume he'll support Barack Obama should the Illinois senator ultimately win the Democratic nomination. So the national Democrats would have nothing to gain and potential general election votes to lose if he gets up there and criticizes Obama.

The only reason I can think of why he'd do that would be if he's still angry enough over the pitched primary battle to feel it's appropriate. And that, in itself, could say a lot about the present and future of the Democratic Party.