Democrats make their final appeals

From Pittsburgh in the west to Philadelphia in the southeast, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama scoured the Keystone State for support Monday on the eve of the costliest and most consequential Pennsylvania primary in a generation.

After days of flogging each other on the airwaves, the two Democratic senators toned down the harsh language that they employed in their weekend appearances, ending the race on a comparatively high note.

Clinton talked up her years in public life -- and drew an implicit contrast with Obama -- telling a crowd of several hundred supporters in Pittsburgh, “One of the best ways to know what someone will do is to look and see what they have done.”

Obama scarcely mentioned Clinton in a town-hall-style meeting in Blue Bell, a Montgomery County suburb of Philadelphia. Instead he laid out his White House agenda, which would begin with a move to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq. But later, in a rally outside Pittsburgh, he faulted Clinton for airing TV ads suggesting that he was not ready to be president.

Today’s vote ends a six-week campaign lull, the longest break in balloting since the presidential candidates rang in the New Year with the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

The contest has lasted much longer than expected, giving Pennsylvania a prominence the state has not enjoyed since 1976, when former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter beat Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson of Washington to essentially seal the Democratic nomination.

The results today are likely to be less decisive, even though the candidates shattered spending records, with more than $12 million going into TV advertising alone.

Barring an Obama upset victory -- which could produce enormous pressure on Clinton to stand aside -- the biggest question is how close the two will finish and whether enough doubts are raised about Obama’s electability to sustain Clinton’s comeback hopes. She trails Obama in fundraising, pledged delegates and the popular vote, but has pressed the case that she can run stronger than her rival in key battleground states -- such as Pennsylvania -- that Democrats must carry to win in the fall.

Clinton began a long day of campaigning in Scranton, an old industrial town in northeastern Pennsylvania, where the New York senator has appeared repeatedly to highlight her family’s roots. Her father was born in Scranton, and a young Hillary Rodham spent summers nearby.

Speaking to a crowd of about 500 supporters at an ornate former Masonic temple downtown, Clinton steered away from the direct attacks on Obama she leveled over the weekend. Instead, she made only passing mention of last week’s debate, in which Obama faced the tougher questioning.

“If you were to hire a president, you’d ask a lot of hard questions,” Clinton said. “That’s what I believe each of us who is running should answer. I don’t want you to take a leap of faith.”

She mainly stuck to her central campaign themes, promising to work toward universal healthcare coverage, affordable college, renewable energy and an end to the war in Iraq. In Pittsburgh, she recounted her resume going back more than 30 years, when she advised the Children’s Defense Fund, and stressed the difficulties facing the occupant of the Oval Office.

“It is the toughest job in the world, and you have to be ready for anything: two wars, skyrocketing oil prices, an economy in crisis,” Clinton said. “I know that is what it takes.”

Her message dovetailed with her latest TV commercial, which flashed an image of Osama bin Laden and invoked President Truman’s observation about the pressures of White House: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

The Bin Laden reference drew a quick response from Obama. During a late-night rally in Pittsburgh before 10,000 people, Obama said it raised “a legitimate issue. My job as commander in chief will be to keep you safe. That will be my No. 1 task. And I will do whatever is required to keep you safe.”

Obama, in a campaign stop earlier in the day in Blue Bell, appropriated a major Clinton theme without actually appropriating the words, telling voters he was ready to be president from Day One. His first step that day, Obama said, would be to give the Pentagon “a new mission: set a timetable for withdrawal out of Iraq.”

President Bush and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the GOP nominee-in-waiting, oppose setting any timetable for withdrawing troops.

Other parts of the agenda Obama envisions for the first 100 days of his administration include an overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system to expand affordable coverage; coming up with an energy plan to reduce carbon emissions; and reviewing trade agreements to ensure that they don’t penalize U.S. workers.

At a rally in McKeesport, near Pittsburgh, he challenged Clinton by referring to her vote in 2002 for authorizing the Iraq war, which Obama opposed. Obama asked the crowd: “Who do you want answering that 3 a.m. phone call: the person who got Iraq wrong, or the person who got Iraq right?”

His final TV ad reprised familiar themes: his early opposition to the war in Iraq, a pledge to shun special interests and a promise to unite the country and “not use fear and calculation to divide us.”

Obama, like Clinton, began his day in Scranton, at a diner where he ducked a reporter’s question about the Palestinian group Hamas. On Sunday, Obama criticized former President Carter for meeting with Hamas leaders during a tour of the Middle East.

Obama did not care to revisit the issue. “Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” Obama asked.

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peter.nicholas@latimes.com

noam.levey@latimes.com

Times staff writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.