Here come the candidates: Pa. primary could pick next prez

It's 6:09 p.m. on April 15, 2008, and the TV news blaring into living rooms across Philadelphia hasn't even mentioned Tax Day, the Phillies' typical slow start or another April heat wave. Once again, the only major story is Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, trading jabs back and forth across the vast expanse of the Keystone State.

"Here in Philadelphia, Obama addressed a frenzied outdoor rally of some 20,000 people on the Penn campus, stepping up his call for a change in the nation's capital. Clinton, touring a Monongahela nursing home in another event-packed day in the western part of the state, was quick to fire back . . . "

Finally the screen fades to a commercial, offering exhausted viewers the promise of something else - the Geico gecko, or that Bud Light dude, anything but . . . no such luck.

"I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message. . . . "

There are some things in life you just didn't see coming. Like a Super Bowl-winning drive directed by the Giants' Eli Manning.

There are some things in life you just didn't see coming. Like a Super Bowl-winning drive directed by the Giants' Eli Manning.

Or the 2008 race for the White House coming full-bore to the Pennsylvania Democratic primary on April 22.

For more than a year, the conventional wisdom held that there was no way Pennsylvania - the latest big-state primary in the nation - could have have any significance. A heavily front-loaded nominating process would decide the race by early February, around the time that Punxsutawney Phil was scampering back into his hole.

And in the Republican race, that is pretty much what has happened, as Sen. John McCain holds a commanding delegate lead, even as ex-Gov. Mike Huckabee hangs on for now.

On Saturday, Pennsylvania's Republican State Committee endorsed the Arizona senator for the presidential nomination at a meeting in Harrisburg.

But in a world of nonstop political punditry, no one expected that two Democratic candidates would be so closely matched, and that the race between the senator from New York and her Illinois rival would hinge on the later primaries and maybe even on the party convention in Denver in August. And that every single delegate would count.

Suddenly, the once-forgotten 188 delegates of the Keystone State loom as a potential key to the nomination. The haphazard schedule of primaries means that the light of national scrutiny will shine on Pennsylvania for at least six long weeks.

That's because no big states will hold primaries after March 4, when Texas and Ohio vote, and no state at all casts ballots between Mississippi, on March 11, and Pennsylvania some 42 days later.

And it seems next to impossible that either Obama or Clinton can deliver a knockout blow before then; the two are almost evenly matched in the number of delegates. The early conventional wisdom is that Obama will win a number of caucuses this month, but that Clinton has the edge in Texas, because of her popularity with Latinos, and in blue-collar Ohio.

"Pennsylvania is going to be a decider," predicted Jon Delano, an adjunct professor of public policy and politics at Carnegie Mellon University. "And I think Pennsylvania is a microcosm of America, which makes it a wonderful battleground."

Not everybody is so thrilled. Writing on his blog at the popular Politico Web site, Ben Smith said campaign operatives are "grimly" predicting what he calls "the Pennsylvania scenario."

"And so, if the two Democrats are still alive then, Pennsylvania becomes Iowa, on steroids," Smith wrote. "The campaigns and the media all decamp to Harrisburg. Clinton and Obama develop a keen interest in the concerns of the Amish. Michael Nutter becomes a major national figure."

The remarkable irony in all of this is that Gov. Rendell and some state lawmakers desperately wanted to move the primary up to Feb. 12, which is tomorrow, in a bid to make Pennsylvania relevant, but their bill died in Harrisburg. Now, Pennsylvania is climbing toward New Hampshire levels on the significance chart.

Those waters are largely uncharted, since no statewide primary has been been so hotly contested here since 1972, when organized labor helped give Hubert Humphrey a big win over George McGovern, the eventual nominee, and George Wallace.

In fact, there's evidence that the campaigns have been thrown off-guard by the state's importance as much as the pundits; the Clinton campaign, for example, has yet to open an office here.

That said, most political experts think the race here may slightly favor Clinton now, because of the popularity of both the senator and her husband, Bill Clinton, dating back to the 1990s, and a Democratic electorate that tends to be older, more female and more blue-collar.

What to look for in Pennsylvania, in the election that no one predicted? Here's an early guide:

The Feminine Mystique: It's no secret that Clinton's bid to become America's first female president has energized women voters on her behalf. National polls show her running about 10 points ahead of Obama among that bloc.

Neil Oxman, a top Democratic campaign strategist based in Philadelphia, said that about 54 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state, in a typical year, are female. "That's a slight edge for Clinton," he said.

The Old College Try: No place has Obama had a stronger base of support in 2008 than on college campuses. Pennsylvania is rich in these bastions of higher learning, from our own Big Six here in Philadelphia (and then some) to Happy Valley to the Pittsburgh campuses of Carnegie Mellon, Pitt and Duquesne.

The schedule has played some tricks on Obama, such as when New Hampshire University was on winter break for that state's early primary, but on April 22 all students here should be in session, offering a large pool of young voters and energetic volunteers. Advantage Obama.

Older Pennsylvanians: In the 2000 census, Pennsylvania has the second-highest elderly population in America after the retirement haven of Florida. That is considered very good news for the Clinton campaign. So far, she has trounced Obama in the over-60 vote, winning some 55 percent of the demographic in a CBS News exit poll on Super Tuesday.

"She's doing better with older voters when Pennsylvania tends to be older," noted Philadelphia Democratic consultant and pundit Larry Ceisler, who also thinks Clinton will be helped by the perception she's more moderate than Obama.

The Racial Factor: Although African-American voters seemed divided at the start of the political season, the black vote has moved steadily towards Obama and he now gains as much as 80 percent. That should almost guarantee the large Philadelphia vote for the Illinois senator, and under the convoluted primary system, those urban congressional districts tend to offer more delegates.

Follow the Money: One key thing to know about a Pennsylvania primary is that it will be expensive - with a need to advertise not just in the large media markets of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia but in at least four smaller ones as well.

Oxman estimates that TV ad buys will cost each candidate from $800,000 to $1 million a week, and that could work to Obama's advantage - because he's the one with more money right now. He raised $32 million in January to just $13.5 million for Clinton, who had to loan her campaign $5 million just to compete on Super Tuesday.

Other Factors: Clinton has done well in states with a lot of Latino voters, but the Hispanic population in Pennsylvania - while growing - remains smaller than in other key primaries, a factor that could help Obama. But Clinton runs well among blue-collar voters, and Pennsylvania is highly unionized.

The biggest surprise is that Pennsylvania voters may be finally getting their presidential politics the way they like it, retail style, with the ability to see and question the candidates face-to-face. A six-week slog across Pennsylvania will mean dozens of smaller candidate events in the state that practically invented local ward politics.

"Every time that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama come to a media market, they will get a lot of free coverage," noted Delano, who expects them to spend considerable time in the northeastern and central parts of the state in addition to the two cities.

Clinton will have one added intangible: The backing of two popular Democrats in Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter. But Obama also is lining up prominent supporters, including U.S. Reps. Chaka Fattah and Patrick Murphy of Bucks County, as well as ex-Sen. Harris Wofford.

Obama, meanwhile, seems to have more sway over enthusiastic volunteers like Eric Graff, a 49-year-old Internet vendor from Wilkes-Barre who already is spending much of his spare time knocking on doors to gather signatures and register new voters for the Illinois senator.

"I'm from a political family but I've been out of it for years," Graff said. "Obama is the first candidate I've been attracted to in many years, because of his message of hope and working together."

Clinton's backers - including Philadelphia power attorney Mark Aronchick, her Pennsylvania finance co-chair - think Clinton's two Senate campaigns in New York offered a template for how to connect with the concerns of both urban and rural voters in a grueling race across a large state.

"Pennsylvania voters expect substantive discussion," Aronchick said. "They want to get close to the candidate."

The biggest irony is that after a month-and-a-half of sound and fury, the delegate spread may not change all that much after Pennsylvania votes.

Delegates here, as elsewhere, are awarded proportionally in a complex formula by congressional district as well as the statewide popular vote, and the winner may receive only a handful more of them than the loser.

Yet for locals who wished to take part in the great national showdown, it looks like this is one seeming pipe dream that will actualy come true, at least on the Democratic side.

But one more unanswered question is whether Democrats will be thinking this by sometime around mid-April: "Be careful what you wish for." *