Did Obama blow the election by blowing off Philly?

MAYBE Barack Obama was destined to lose Pennsylvania by 9 percentage points anyway, after Jeremiah Wright, the "bitter" controversy and a bruising debate.

But friends and adversaries of the Illinois senator are puzzled that his campaign didn't make better use of its most potent weapon: Obama himself.

"I don't understand it," said Marcel Groen, a Clinton supporter and Democratic chairman of Montgomery County. "He's the most gifted orator I've seen among presidential candidates in my lifetime. He has the capacity to command huge crowds and blow people away. Explain to me why he has only one major rally in seven weeks."

Obama had only one big rally, Friday on Independence Mall.

He campaigned far less in Pennsylvania than rival Hillary Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, and husband, President Clinton, also stumped throughout the state and region.

"Hillary and Chelsea were in Haverford one morning, and Bill did two events at two high schools that evening," Groen said. "Those events probably touched about 7,000 people, and in a close race, that's meaningful."

Clinton edged Obama in vote-rich Montgomery County by 2,200 votes.

And in the seven-week campaign leaning up to Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, Obama never set foot in North or West Philadelphia, black communities that contained his most fervent base of support.

Asked about that several weeks ago, Obama said that the campaign was concentrating on areas where he was less known. Those efforts apparently yielded precious little.

To pick one example, Cambria County, which includes the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown, voted 72 percent to 28 percent for Clinton.

Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he "questioned Sen. Obama's decision not to campaign more in Philadelphia."

"If you recall my 2002 campaign for governor, I visited every county in the state," Rendell said. "But in the last 10 days, I lived in the Philadelphia media market, because I knew I had to drive out my base."

Obama won Philadelphia by a 65-to-35-percent margin Tuesday, and it appears turnout in African-American wards was robust.

But state Sen. Anthony Williams, an ardent Obama supporter, said he was hoping for a superlative turnout.

"To get that kind of turnout, maybe he [Obama] should have spent time on 52nd Street, and 63rd Street, and Allegheny, and Cecil B. Moore," Williams said.

"I saw young white voters energized, but there are a lot of young black people in the neighborhoods, 18, 20, 21 years old, and if he'd shown up more in those streets, we might have seen them more energized," Williams said.

In white areas of Northeast Philadelphia, Clinton rolled up big margins - 77 to 23 percent in the 58th ward, 74 to 26 in the 55th, and 76 to 34 in the 66th.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said Clinton's energy helped her in the city.

"Hillary and Bill were knocking on doors and working diners like local candidates," Butkovitz said. "When Obama came to town, he was treated like a rock star. Hillary was treated more like the girl next door, or the City Council candidate, and was rewarded at the polls."

While Obama came away from the city with a 130,000-vote margin, he lost narrowly in the four suburban counties, and suffered big defeats in most of the rest of the state.

Media consultant Neil Oxman said there's one thing both sides should feel good about, which is that "2.3 million Democrats voted in this primary, and that number is just unbelievable. "The Republicans have to be scared by that number." *