WASHINGTON — After a six-week hiatus, the Democratic presidential contest goes back to the voters Tuesday, when Pennsylvania holds a primary that is a make-or-break contest for Hillary Rodham Clinton's struggling campaign.
It also is a test of whether Barack Obama can regain his momentum despite recent controversies and can win over blue-collar voters who have been cool to him elsewhere.
The candidates spent the weekend crisscrossing the Keystone State in the final days before balloting, the first Democratic primary since Mississippi's on March 11.
Obama, in what he called his "closing argument" Sunday in Reading, described Clinton as disingenuous for revising positions to suit voters' tastes.
"Her basic view about this election is that the 'say anything, do anything' special-interest-driven politics in Washington is how it's got to be," he said. "That's how the game is played. And so you should elect her to be the nominee because she has been in Washington longer and she knows how to play the game better."
Clinton hopscotched the state, countering that it was Obama, not she, who had been clouding these last days of campaigning with negativity and misleading statements.
"I was raised by my family to say what I mean and mean what I say," she told a crowd in Bethlehem on Sunday.
The last few weeks of campaigning have not been kind to either candidate: Clinton's once-commanding lead in Pennsylvania polls has dwindled, while Obama has come under fire for his former pastor's incendiary remarks, his association with a Vietnam-era radical and a comment that some thought demeaned "bitter" rural voters.
The stakes in Pennsylvania are high as the candidates head into the stretch drive of a race being run on two levels.
On one level, they are still fighting to collect more committed delegates to the nominating convention, although it is hard to see, mathematically, how Clinton can overcome Obama's advantage.
But because neither can sew up enough elected delegates to cinch the nomination, they are also campaigning for the hearts and minds of superdelegates -- the party activists and officials who can back either candidate and will probably decide the contest.
The support of 2,024 convention delegates is needed to clinch the nomination. According to a weekend count by the Associated Press, Obama has 1,645, compared with Clinton's 1,507, though she has the backing of more superdelegates who have stated a preference. Obama is ahead in the popular vote, 13.4 million to 12.7 million.
