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By John L. Micek

The Morning Call

April 19, 2008

With just three days to go before Pennsylvanians head to the polls, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are in a statistical dead heat in the political harbinger of Lehigh and Northampton counties, a new Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll has found.

Clinton holds a 47 percent to 46 percent lead in the phone poll of 322 likely voters.

The poll was conducted between April 10 and Thursday, a time that saw the two candidates exchange jabs over Obama's observations on the tribulations of small-town Pennsylvania voters.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

''It's as tight a race as it can be in the Valley, a key bellwether region of the state,'' said Christopher Borick, the director of Muhlenberg's Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, which conducted the poll.

Since 1952, Lehigh Valley voters have diverged from the nation's choice of president only four times. That includes the 2000 race, when voters in the two counties picked popular-vote winner Al Gore.

And only once in that same period have Valley voters not mirrored the choice of their fellow Pennsylvanians, Borick said. In 1960, Valley voters picked Richard Nixon. The state went to winner John F. Kennedy.

''If Obama has any ambitions about winning the state, [the two counties are] a place that he'll need to win outright,'' Borick said.

Despite a week of headlines that focused on Obama's comments that small-town residents become bitter and ''cling'' to guns and religion as comfort in tough economic times, 82 percent of respondents said they had either a very favorable or somewhat favorable impression of the Illinois senator.

Twelve percent of respondents had a very or somewhat unfavorable impression of Obama.

Obama spokesman Sean Smith said the twin results show that the candidate's message was resonating with local voters. But he acknowledged that Obama ''still has a ways to go'' with area Democrats, even though he has winnowed Clinton's lead to single digits in most statewide polls.

Clinton, who's coming off a strong performance in Wednesday's debate in Philadelphia, did not fare as well among area voters. Two-thirds said they had a very favorable or somewhat favorable impression of Clinton, compared with 20 percent who regarded her unfavorably.

The New York senator has gone on the attack in recent days, both on the stump and on the air, criticizing Obama's qualifications and his public misstatements.

Clinton spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the campaign is ''confident in its organizational base in the Valley'' and said campaign volunteers ''will be out in force'' this weekend to sell voters on Clinton's message.

Both candidates are barnstorming the state in the run-up to Tuesday's primary. Clinton is scheduled to appear at Liberty High School in Bethlehem at 1 p.m. Sunday. Obama is on a statewide train tour that takes him to a rally in Harrisburg tonight.

And despite their personal differences, regional Democrats are still holding out hope that Clinton and Obama will be able to mend fences and maybe even run on the same ticket.

Nearly half of area Democrats said Obama should ask Clinton to be his running mate if he wins the nomination, while 57 percent said Clinton should give the veep nod to Obama.

john.micek@mcall.com 717-783-7305

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