First Lady boosts Tom Wolf in Phila. visit

First Lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday urged a crowd in Northwest Philadelphia to "step up today" and begin making phone calls and knocking on doors to elect Democrat Tom Wolf governor.

"If we truly want to finish what we started…if we want change in Pennsylvania, we need to take responsibility," Mrs. Obama said at a rally with several hundred people at the Dorothy Emanuel Recreation Center in East Mount Airy.

Her visit, less than three weeks before the Nov. 4 election, was designed to help build some excitement in an area where Wolf needs good numbers from in order to win. Campaign workers with clipboards signed up attendees for volunteer shifts.

Campaign and Democratic strategists have worried that Wolf's longstanding lead and the absence of competitive local races might lead to complacency among the party's core voters.

President Obama himself plans to visit Pennsylvania for a rally with Wolf in the last full week of the campaign, as part of a push to boost Democratic candidates for governor in seven states. The same week, the president will go to Michigan and Wisconsin and Maine, in addition to the Keystone State. In the next few days he is scheduled to campaign in Connecticut, Maryland and Illinois.

Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, which is in play, have avoided the unpopular president, though he has been deployed to raise millions for the party's congressional and Senate campaign committees.