why is it not validating as a truth?

Because you are using a numerical comparision operator (==) to compare two strings. What you want is "eq"

See perldoc perlop

Now, if you don't mind me saying so.. that big series of if/elsif's really smells!

If it were me, I would refactor that into something like so:

my $title = 'Political Animal';  # Or in your case, $q->param('title')

my %links_to = (
    "Political Animal"  => "pa",
    "Newslink"          => "nl",
    "New Slang"         => "ns",
    "Rant With Ryan"    => "rwr",
    "Planet Venus"      => "pv",
    "All Day Breakfast" => "adb",
);

my $link = $links_to{$title};

print $link;
[download]

Cheers,
Darren :)