The Note: Keystone Klankers

April 21, 2008 -- Pennsylvania could well produce two winners -- if Sen. Barack Obama keeps it close enough (whatever that means) against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But it's a pretty sure bet that it's already produced enough to make the Democratic Party lose. (Would anyone like to argue that either Obama, D-Ill., or Clinton, D-N.Y., looks better for the experience of this overtime contest -- particularly these six weeks of Keystone campaigning/complaining?)

The final days make the point -- and may be tipping the race toward the worrisome stage in the minds of savvy Democrats (and superdelegates?). Both campaigns are ending negative -- in rhetoric, tone, and advertising.

His closing argument is about her, and hers is about him, and they're not relying on surrogates or staffers to do their dirty work.

"In some of the most pointed attacks of the campaign, the rivals unleashed TV ads accusing each other of being enthralled to the special interests they say they oppose," Thomas Fitzgerald and Tom Infield write in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

And Obama provided Clinton a new last-minute opening. The line in question: "All three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said Sunday in Reading, Pa., per ABC's Eloise Harper and Sunlen Miller.

Countered Clinton: "We need a nominee that will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain."

The AP's Liz Sidoti: Obama's "backhanded compliment threatened to undercut his own efforts -- and those of the entire Democratic Party -- to portray the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting as nothing more than an extension of Bush's unpopular tenure."

As if the campaign needed an excuse to take another negative turn. "The Democratic candidates traded some of their sharpest jabs yet, again raising concerns that when the brawl is over, the party will not be able to unite for the fight for the presidency," ABC's David Wright reports.

Said Joe Morgan, a Democratic committeeman for Berks County: "This has gotten so bad this year, I'm not sure people can forget about it and put it behind themselves after Tuesday."

It's flowing in both directions: "In television commercials and in appearances before crowded rallies, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, cast his opponent in one of the most negative lights of the entire 16-month campaign, calling her a compromised Washington insider," Jeff Zeleny and Katharine Q. Seelye write in The New York Times.

"Mrs. Clinton, of New York, responded by suggesting that Mr. Obama's message of hope had given way to old-style politics and asked Democrats to take a harder look at him."

Behind the story: "The intensity of Mr. Obama's campaign and his willingness to air negative attacks in recent days suggest he harbored hope of ending the Clinton campaign here or avoiding a major loss that would keep the race alive."

Obama can try (and is trying) to condemn Clinton's tactics; his campaign is largely built on the notion that such tactics need to change. But there are enough kitchen sinks flying for guilt all around.

"How on Earth can Obama with a straight face decry these 'distractions' when his campaign that very same day organized a conference call to harp on Clinton's Bosnia-sniper-fire gaffe?" asks ABC's Jake Tapper. "Is Clinton's Bosnia-sniper-fire story not a 'distraction,' while Rezko, Wright, Ayers, Bitter-gate, and the flag pin are 'distractions'?"

Remember that he's had chances to close her out before -- and whiffed. "Even as Obama campaign officials play down their chances of winning Pennsylvania -- asserting that anything less than a double-digit Clinton victory would be a triumph for the candidate -- his confrontational posture in the race's closing days suggests a newly adventurous strategy," Sasha Issenberg writes in The Boston Globe.

"The dramatic shifts in Obama's campaign in Pennsylvania reflect the lessons learned from earlier disappointments, when victories might have driven Clinton from the race," Dan Balz and Shailagh Murray write in The Washington Post. "He has questioned whether she is honest and trustworthy and cast her as a practitioner of old-style, special-interest politics."

This cuts both ways, over in the realm of spin: "Given how much they've thrown at us, and the all-out effort the Obama campaign has made to win, we don't believe that the margin matters that much any more -- just who comes out on top," said Clinton campaign strategist Geoff Garin.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., still isn't reading his talking points: "I'd be surprised if she doesn't win by 10 points," Murtha said, per Jill Lawrence and Kathy Kiely of USA Today.

Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa., is reading his (for a day, at least): "Would I like [Clinton] to win by double digits?" Rendell asked on "Face the Nation." "Sure, but I don't think that is going to happen."

Or maybe not: "Not to put any pressure on you folks, but this is it, this is it," Rendell said Sunday in York, Pa., per NPR. "We're gonna we win, no doubt about it, but we gotta win big."

After saying "yes, yes, yes" at last week's debate to the question of whether Obama can win, Clinton offers a twist on that answer to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Thomas Fitzgerald (shades of her argument to superdelegates?): "I don't see any contradiction at all. . . . He can be elected; I will be elected. . . . If you look at the electoral map, anything is possible, but it is more likely that the coalition I have put together is the winning coalition."

The latest Quinnipiac poll out of Pennsylvania has it Clinton 51, Obama 44 -- almost exactly where the poll has been for two weeks.

McClatchy/MSNBC has it at Clinton 48, Obama 43 in Pennsylvania -- perilously close to the margin where a Clinton win won't be a "win" -- and in the territory where even a victory won't guarantee her a delegate edge. "Hillary Clinton leads among bowlers, gun owners and hunters in Pennsylvania, a blue-collar trifecta that is helping her hold an edge over rival Barack Obama heading into Tuesday's pivotal primary there," McClatchy's Stephen Thomma writes.

Pennsylvania is likely to show the Democrats their divisions, all over again. "The class issue looms the largest in Pennsylvania," Peter Canellos writes in The Boston Globe.

"Increasingly, the fear among Democrats is that one group or the other might opt for Republican John McCain, should their favored Democrat not get the nomination. And in places like Lawrenceville, a section of Pittsburgh, preferences have only hardened as voters have gotten to know more about the candidates."

Clinton's close is targeting Obama's base: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday unleashed a steady barrage of attacks on Sen. Barack Obama, playing up her experience before a group that usually lines up behind her opponent -- students," Jerome Sherman writes in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

She needs the late-deciders: "Undecided Democratic primary voters who wait until Election Day before choosing a candidate have overwhelming went with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- a trend that she needs to continue in tomorrow's crucial Pennsylvania primary to claim a decisive victory," S.A. Miller writes in the Washington Times.

He needs the new registrants: "An historic spike in Democratic voter registrations in Pennsylvania could help Barack Obama cut into Hillary Clinton's vote in Tuesday's primary, robbing her of the big victory margin she needs to justify continuing the primary fight," Politico's Jeanne Cummings writes. "A poll of those switchers and new registrants released by [Terry] Madonna last week found that Obama was the preferred candidate for 62 percent of them."

Plus some Republicans (OK -- "Obamicans"): "In Bucks County there are 'regular Obamicans' -- former Republicans who volunteer only occasionally for Obama, if at all -- and 'super-volunteer Obamicans,' " The Nation's Ari Berman writes.

"Many of these Obamicans are voting as much against the Clintons as for Obama."