Madonna: Lehigh Valley and Southeast could help Obama take PA

In the Allentown Morning Call, G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young write that Obama has a chance to beat Hillary in Pennsylvania:

He is positioned to emulate Rendell to a greater extent than is generally recognized. Essentially he must win the same 10 counties Rendell won in 2002, while reducing Clinton's margins in her strongholds. Currently he leads in Philly and will likely win there decisively, making the suburbs a major battleground. The Democratic voters there largely mirror the upscale, affluent voters Obama has been attracting nationally: They are the most liberal in the state, strongly oppose the Iraq War, with a low regard for President Bush. For insurance Obama needs to join the Philadelphia suburbs to the two pivotal swing areas, the Lehigh Valley and Southcentral, where the Democrats are moderate to liberal and where he currently polls well against Sen. Clinton. Beyond this, managing turnout will be crucial for him.

According to the Boston Globe, the Obama camp has given up any hope of winning delegates in the state. Their plan is to narrow Hillary's lead in the popular vote:

Obama's campaign has given every indication that he does not expect to win the most delegates when Pennsylvania votes on April 22, due to an overwhelmingly white, working-class electorate that has already given Hillary Clinton a sizable lead in some polls. But Obama's team has put to work an intense registration program designed to achieve a broader strategic goal: limiting the scale of Clinton's win to maintain Obama's national edge in the number of total votes cast in the Democratic primaries.

That contest for total votes, while meaningless in any formal sense, is a key to Clinton's strategy for wooing superdelegates by convincing them that she has the broadest strength among voters.

"In this state right now, his game is about bringing the popular-vote differential down," said Ken Smukler, a Pennsylvania Democratic strategist unaligned with either candidate. "Since Super Tuesday, this game has never been just about pledged delegates."

The Obama campaign's registration program seems to be working, even in deep Hillary country.
From the Hazleton Standard-Speaker:

On the last day of voter registration, Sen. Barack Obama’s supporters had a clear edge over those for his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, at the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections. Obama supporters brought boxes filled with more than 3,000 voter registration forms to the bureau’s office on North Pennsylvania Avenue in Wilkes-Barre on Monday, while volunteers for Clinton returned several hundred forms, Director of Elections Leonard Piazza said.