Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain gestures at a rally in Hershey on Tuesday.

 

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"I'm not afraid of the fight; I'm ready for it," 72-year-old Republican Sen. John McCain said, adding that "it's wonderful to fool the pundits."

The verdict on whether the pundits are wrong or McCain's words are simply an empty rallying cry awaits six days from now.

McCain appears to have chosen Pennsylvania as the place where he will either make a successful stand against Democrat Sen. Barack Obama or lose the contest for the White House. His constant presence here during the final days of the campaign can indicate either a sense of opportunity or an acknowledgment that, with troubling poll numbers in such traditional GOP states as Virginia, he can't beat Obama without Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes.

With nearly 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans and polls regularly showing double-digit leads for Obama, however, Pennsylvania would be a tough state to swing away from the Democrats.

"He needs a Hail Mary or a bolt of lightning, something to change this dynamic," G. Terry Madonna, director of Franklin & Marshall College's Center for Politics & Public Affairs, said. Madonna said McCain is struggling in the vital Philadelphia suburbs and not showing strong margins in conservative areas of Pennsylvania where McCain should be way ahead.

McCain spent much of his 20-minute speech Tuesday portraying himself as a spunky warrior — from references to his time as a POW in North Vietnam, to the repetitive use of the word "fight," down to the use of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" from the film "Rocky II" as his entrance theme.

McCain told the Hershey crowd that "we're a few points down" in Pennsylvania, understating what polls like Rasmussen and Franklin & Marshall and Fox News and Strategic Vision have reported. But that didn't stop him from trying to bolster morale among his supporters.

McCain, though, finds himself in a place where even seemingly sensible choices can produce political backsplash. For example, as rain fell Tuesday on eastern Pennsylvania and temperatures remained December-like, McCain canceled an outdoor rally in Quakertown. But 50 miles away in Chester, 9,000 soggy people stood in the mud and cold rain to hear Obama speak at Widener University and grasp an opportunity.

"I just want all of you to know that if we see this kind of dedication on Election Day, there is no way that we're not going to bring change to America," Obama said at his rally.

Among the Hershey crowd, opinions about how McCain can pull off a stunning upset in Pennsylvania were as varied as the potential strategies, many of which come with potential consequences, such as those witnessed during the past month.

"He's being too nice," 68-year-old Pat Carter of Hershey said. "He needs to talk about (Obama's) lack of experience. Obama's just a smooth talker."

Yet, whenever the McCain campaign lobbed accusations of Obama's "palling around with terrorists" or deployed other negative devices, McCain's approval rating among voters slipped considerably.

Jeff Hosler, a 54-year-old Mechanicsburg resident wearing an American flag hat, said McCain should avoid negativity and drive home a message about the economy.

"They don't need to attack Ayers," Hosler said, referring to former Vietnam-era radical and current education professor William Ayers, who has supported Obama's candidacy. "They need to focus on the economy. (Democrats) will sell the country out for the power of the White House."

Here again is where McCain has lagged behind Obama in voter surveys.

According to an analysis by RealClearPolitics.com, McCain was in a statistical tie with Obama among Pennsylvania voters just before the Wall Street collapse at the end of September.

Since then, Obama has widened the lead to about 10.8 percentage points and remains the candidate of choice for those who consider the economy the top issue.

In Pennsylvania, the economy has limped along with unemployment at 5.7 percent, 1.3 percent higher this year, and 12,200 job cuts in September alone.

If McCain senses pending defeat, he wasn't showing it during Tuesday's rally.

"I have fought for you most of my life and in places where defeat meant more than returning to the Senate," he said near the conclusion of his speech. "There are other ways to love this country, but I've never been the kind to back down when the stakes are high."

McCain has six more days until he learns whether the American voters will make him the next person to go from a soldier in a combat zone to the presidency.

E-mail: dpidgeon@lnpnews.com