Dan Gross: Local writer scores a 'Victory'

WRITER Sasha Issenberg has just sold a book, The Victory Lab, to Crown for publication in mid-2012, as Politico reported Friday.

The former Philadelphia magazine writer's work is about modern American politics and the social psychology used by strategists and academics to change campaigns and win elections. It will focus heavily on Montgomery County native Todd Rogers, a Harvard-educated social behaviorist and director of the Analyst Institute, which was featured in an October New York Times Magazine story that Issenberg wrote on the topic of his book.

Issenberg, who covered the 2008 presidential campaign for the Boston Globe, is North America editor for Monocle magazine and also author of The Sushi Economy, about globalization.

Out and about

_ Comedian Rob Riggle, known from "The Daily Show" and "SNL," as well as a dozen films, toured the Franklin Institute on Friday while in town performing several sold-out shows at Helium Comedy Club (2031 Sansom).

_ Philly pro skater Stevie Williams partied into the wee hours the other night at a VIP table at the Eve nightclub, in Las Vegas, where boxer Floyd Mayweather also hung out in the VIP area.

Jersey girl on 'Real World'

Delran High School graduate Heather Marter is among the cast of MTV's "Real World: Las Vegas," which premieres March 9.

Marter, 22, is a broadcasting major at Monmouth University.

Honors for ticket man

Congratulations to Bala Cynwyd's Jim McCafferty, who picked up the Outstanding Ticket Professional award at the International Ticketing Association's annual conference in San Francisco.

McCafferty, 59, is ticketing director at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, and also has worked on ticketing Woodstock '94, a mobile ticketing system that Pearl Jam used in '95 and '96 during its battle with Ticketmaster, ticketing tours of U2, Phish and Faith Hill, and with the Phillies and the Eagles.

McCafferty, who majored in finance at La Salle University, serves as a business agent and president of Local 752 Treasurers and Ticket Sellers of the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE).

Good luck, George

Best wishes to well-known area photographer George Feder - the photographer often used by national Democrats when visiting Philadelphia, the official photographer of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the man who usually covers the Stu Bykofsky Candidates Comedy Night - who goes into Lankenau Hospital this week to be treated for lung cancer.

The prognosis is good, says George, adding that a full and complete recovery is expected. He should be shooting again by mid-March.

A long-time pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker, George quit after his diagnosis.

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