The New York Times has a great piece today about the kick off of Obama’s bus tour of Pennsylvania. According to them, Obama can do well in Pennsylvania by mimicking Ed Rendell’s strategy. Get turnout in Philadelphia as high as possible, and mitigate the damage everywhere else.

If past elections are a guide, Mr. Obama’s success will lie in how much he can increase the turnout in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburban counties, with their pockets of affluent, educated white liberals. The suburbs are expected to be a major battleground.

It was Mr. Rendell’s near-total reliance on the Philadelphia media market that won him the primary for governor in 2002, and many analysts here see Mr. Obama copying that strategy, which is interesting because Mr. Rendell is such a big cheerleader for Mrs. Clinton.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News’s blog has a fun post about the kick off of the bus tour too. Apparently former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis “the Bus” came out to support Obama, who carried a football out on to the stage.

The rumor was that Obama would toss a football with Bettis or stage a hand-off. But rather than risk a costly gaffe, Obama emerged from the Soldiers and Sailors Hall, where he’d been speaking, carrying a football. And he never gave it up.

Another former Steeler and current Obama supporter, Franco Harris, was also in the picture. He did not board the bus for the ride to the next stop. But Bettis did. So, the Bus is on the bus.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Pennsylvania Primary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.