WEST CHESTER, Pa. — Hillary Rodham Clinton implored Pennsylvanians on Saturday to think about the nation’s trade and debt burdens, the growth of China and the restive Middle East when they vote in the state’s pivotal primary, perhaps her last chance to stall rival Barack Obama’s reach for the Democratic nomination.
Her implication was clear — Obama is flash, she’s substance.
After speaking to about 35,000 supporters the night before in the largest crowd of his campaign, Obama boarded a royal blue train car in Philadelphia for a daylong whistle-stop tour in a state where polls have found Clinton with a persistent if shrinking advantage. Casual without a tie or jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled up, the Illinois senator shook hands with conductors and rail-workers on the platform and set off, pulling the train whistle. Flags and bunting draped the back.
The primary Tuesday follows a month-long hiatus in voting, a gap the candidates filled in large measure by sullying each other.
Party officials known as superdelegates continued drifting toward Obama in that interim, increasing his edge in the race, and that trend is bound to accelerate if he performs strongly Tuesday. Clinton is hoping a decisive win will put a stop to that.
Clinton spoke under a baking sun outside West Chester’s 175-year-old fire house, striking a somber note about problems at home and abroad as she described the stakes for voters Tuesday.
“I don’t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up,” she said. “I want everyone thinking.”
On Friday night, some 35,000 people jammed into Philadelphia’s Independence Park to see Obama, a larger crowd than he and Oprah Winfrey drew in South Carolina in December. He called the former first lady a tenacious opponent but said it was time to move beyond the politics of the 1990s.
He said: “Her message comes down to this: We can’t really change the say-anything, do-anything, special interest-driven game in Washington, so we might as well choose a candidate who really knows how to play it.”
Obama’s train tour planned four stops en route to his evening rally in Harrisburg. “I’m really excited about this,” he said. “So should we load up?” With that, he clambered aboard the Georgia 300 train car and pulled the whistle. The car had a dark wood interior, small reading lamps, a bed, large bowls of fruit, wooden blinds and a desk and chairs.
Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Obama’s most prominent supporter in the state, and his family came along.
Earlier, Obama canvassed in the Mayfair district of Philadelphia for 40 minutes, knocking on doors and making small talk and policy talk with neighbors sitting on their doorsteps and lawns.
Don Robertson told him his monthly payments rose by at least $600 on property he owns in Florida and he’s struggling to keep up with them because he was recently laid off. “I hope you can do something about home foreclosures,” he said. Obama described efforts in Congress to help.
“We just passed something in the Senate but they started loading it up with tax breaks for property developers,” Obama said. “That’s what we’re up against.”
Clinton planned five events across the state as both campaigns prepared for the sprint to Tuesday. Nick Clemons, her Pennsylvania director, said the campaign would deploy 5,000 volunteers to place phone calls and knock on doors. “This is not going to be a blowout race,” he said. “We’re looking for a win, and we think it’s going to be a close race.”
Former President Clinton told a small crowd in Wilkes-Barre that his wife can win if her supporters come out. The outcome “is basically going to be determined by whether you want it bad enough,” he said. “You give her a big vote out of here, she’ll wake up in a different world, and so will you, and America will have a better tomorrow.”
Obama leads Clinton in overall delegates, 1,645-1,505, with 2,025 needed to win the nomination. Obama also has a thin lead in the popular vote that Clinton hopes to overcome before the final ballots are cast in June.
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Associated Press Liz Sidoti reported from Philadelphia.
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