is associate editor emeritus

of The Inquirer

When I wrote six weeks ago about the Democratic presidential primary, I called the race run by Barack Obama a political phenomenon like no other I have witnessed in my 40-year journalistic career.

I need write his full name only once, in the lead of my column, and not have to identify him further, as in "U.S. senator from Illinois in a pitched battle with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for their party's nomination for president" - and for the rest of the time he is just Obama. Such things suggest how much of a political phenomenon Obama is.

In fact, if I mentioned only his first name, few if any would ask who I was writing about.

Five weeks ago, polls suggested that Clinton had a double-digit lead over Obama in Pennsylvania ranging from 16 to 20 points.

More recent polls suggest he is closing the gap, with some polls having her as few as 4 percentage points ahead.

My political instincts are based not on polls (they are often misleading), but on anecdotal evidence gained from observing the political activity around me and talking to the people involved in it.

For example, for the last three years, I have been attending FitLife, a popular physical-therapy and physical-fitness center in Mount Airy. In the physical-therapy area, conversation issues among the benches and tables, as people in gym shorts and sweat suits sit or lie while stretching or getting heat or ice:

"You seem to be in pain. What happened to you? Were you in an accident, or are you, like me, just getting older?" Or "I had the same knee operation." Or "I had the same surgeon." Or "It is my spinal cord as well." Or "Arthur (Arthur Itis) is kicking my tail." These conversations, always friendly, usually amount to a comparison of ailments and progress.

But last week the talk was different.

"He certainly represents change," said a man talking to two women. All three happened to be black, although FitLife has a very diverse clientele. "Yes, he certainly does," said one of the women. The other added: "It has been a long time since I felt this good or have been this excited."

They were not talking about their improving stamina nor comparing physicians. They were talking Tuesday's primary.

When I asked whom they supported, all three said, "Barack."

Many are like Irl Barg, a Chester County resident, after he attended an Obama fund-raiser on the grounds of a large home in Bryn Mawr. About 700 people gathered outside under a tent. Barg was among an ethnically diverse group, including many former Republicans who were now Obama supporters. Attendees paid a minimum of $1,000 for cocktails and to hear Obama speak. The event raised $700,000-plus.

Barg identified himself as a Jewish man who grew up in Texas, but who has lived in Pennsylvania for many years. He said Obama's "speeches, his demeanor, and his powerful charisma transcend race." He echoed what one of the women at FitLife said to me: "Obama is not running as a black candidate, but as an American candidate, and that represents change in the American political process." Barg also said he felt that Obama's rejection of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s insensitive remarks should help heal "any rifts between Jews and African Americans."

I got a call last week from an old friend from my old South Philadelphia neighborhood.

This friend, a longtime Democratic committeeman, said: "Acel, I called to tell you that my granddaughter, who will be 18 before the general election, wanted me to help her register to vote, because she is excited about Obama. Man, I have never seen anything like this."

My friend predicted that Obama would take Philadelphia: "He is going to beat the [Democratic Party] machine. . . . He has so many volunteers, including my granddaughter, that he doesn't need any street money" - cash candidates sometimes distribute to pay those who get out the vote.

Greg Naylor, field operations director for U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, said that there was no doubt Obama would take Philadelphia - but that he also had the potential to win Pennsylvania. Naylor is basing his prediction on the increased registration for the Democratic Party. The party has registered more than 50,000 new voters for the primary in the city alone and more than 100,000 for the state. The Obama campaign is given credit for most of the new registrations, which include those who, as I did, switched from no affiliation to Democratic to vote for Obama.

There're also the demographics, which suggest that Obama does not need to take all or even most of the state's 67 counties, but rather must concentrate his winnings in but 14 of them. That's what Ed Rendell did to become governor.

Such demographics, and the upswing in new registrations, tell me Pennsy is less like Ohio than some pundits have asserted. And if Barack Obama wins Pennsylvania - or if it's close, in low single digits - it may be time to put to rest the old, cynical canard that Pennsylvania, between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, is just another Alabama.

This state is full of people - in Pittsburgh, in Philadelphia, in every town, city and village - who make up their own minds. They're there, and they're also "in the middle." It's a state full of Pennsylvanians. And we can surprise you.