"This reminds me of my days campaigning to be a state senator," Obama told his companions. "Only there was no media, and there were more slammed doors."

In this presidential campaign, few doors have been slammed in the face of the Illinois senator. And he has kicked in some on his own, putting himself in a strong position to win the Democratic presidential nomination over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama is fond of telling crowds that he is reminded constantly, if not by events then by his wife, Michelle, that he is "not a perfect man." For his campaign, the final stretch before the Pennsylvania primary has been not a perfect time.

"I would say we had good days and we had bad days," his communications director, Robert Gibbs, said yesterday, looking back.

Consider all that has happened recently, all of it with a Pennsylvania connection:

Last Wednesday, in the Philadelphia debate, Obama stumbled at times, struggling with a series of questions (which many of his supporters denounced as trivial and unfair) about his past associations and the flag lapel pin he doesn't wear.

The Friday before, Obama and company were rocked by the news that the candidate had described small-town Pennsylvanians as "bitter." He had to spend days explaining what he meant.

To respond to the controversy over his former pastor, Obama chose Philadelphia for his speech on race.

If any of this was bothering Obama in the final days, he hasn't let it show, even as he lashed out at Clinton for what he called her "slash-and-burn" tactics.

"I don't get too high when things are high. I don't get too low when things are low," he told the editorial boards of The Inquirer and Daily News last week.

"I've gotten my share of knocks and made some mistakes during the campaign, and I think I've held pretty steady throughout."

There's little question, though, that these events have complicated Obama's attempts to attract undecided voters in a state with a Democratic electorate that is tilted, demographically speaking, in Clinton's favor.

After closing the gap in the early part of April - thanks largely to spending millions of dollars on television - he had to keep doing everything right to overcome the remainder of Clinton's lead. And he hasn't. His state poll numbers have been stuck in the low-to-mid 40s, about a half dozen points behind her.

That hasn't stopped him, as he traversed the state, from continuing his playful romance with his fans.

At Wynnewood, the first stop on his Saturday whistle-stop train tour, he started talking about his rally on Independence Mall, perhaps the largest of his entire campaign with an estimated turnout of 35,000.

"I was there!" someone shouted.

"I saw you," Obama replied to the delight of the crowd.

That night, on the steps of the Capitol in Harrisburg, he was interrupted as he began to speak by the stirrings of several hundred people far off to his right.

"Can you hear me over there?" he asked, picking up their cause for concern.

"No!" they yelled.

"Well, you could hear me when I asked if you could hear," he said, chuckling, turning to the rest of the crowd. "That was kind of a trick question."

The sound system was repaired, everyone got to hear, and the candidate delivered his fifth speech of the day, this one more energetic than the ones before.

His supporters, for the most part, remain enthralled, with many of them expressing both admiration for the way he has handled his difficulties and agreement with him in calling them mere "distractions."

"They're manufactured problems," said Ruth Martelli, 63, of Reading. "I'm supporting him because he represents for me what this country should be."

"When somebody turns something negative against him, he addresses it, explains it and moves on - I like that," said Cate Kager, 49, a resident of Erie who changed her registration from Republican to Democrat for Obama. "I've hated politics. Now, I've got bumper stickers on my car, and I'm working phone banks for him."

"No one is perfect; imagine if Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln had microphones under their mouths all the time," Rita Tarves, 56, of Havertown, said of his difficulties. "I've been a pretty staunch Hillary supporter. But he's been pulling at my heels the whole time."

The voters get to decide tomorrow whether Pennsylvania will slam the door in Obama's face or decide, after a long and erratic courtship, to welcome him in.

at 215-854-2415 or leichel@phillynews.com.