With the McCain campaign coming to believe that winning Pennsylvania is essential, Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin charged up a crowd of supporters at an indoor rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania. They continued their criticism of Democrat presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, as a tax-and-spend “redistributionist” who would raise taxes on small businesses and the middle class.

McCain has an uphill climb in Pennsylvania, which has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988. The Republican presidential nominee, who has spent six days in the state during the past two weeks, told supporters: “It’s wonderful to fool the pundits because we’re going to win in Pennsylvania.”

Although state polls show Obama with a double-digit lead, the McCain campaign has pinned its fading hopes on the perception that it can win over working-class voters, independents and Democrats who supported Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

Underscoring the significance of the battle being waged over Pennsylvania, Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said: “It seems inevitable that the McCain camp is going to lose some Western states, and if they can somehow offset those losses with wins in Pennsylvania, and its 21 electoral votes, it really does give them the chance that they’re hoping for.”

For Obama, losing Pennsylvania could undo any electoral gains he might make by winning over proven Republican states - like Virginia, Colorado or Nevada. Last week, Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, watching the Republican candidates crisscross his state, urged the Obama campaign to return and “nail this thing down.”