Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are both making campaign stops in Pennsylvania this weekend. There is the optimistic take on this, which is that this is really, finally going to be the year (first since 1988!) that a GOP presidential candidate will win the state. Polls do show the race is relatively tight there.
Then there is the pessimistic take, which I’m afraid I’m leaning toward right now: the Romney campaign is very, very concerned about Ohio and is trying to come up with a way to win without Ohio. Pennsylvania has 18 electoral votes (Ohio has 20), and if Romney won that state, but lost Ohio, he might well get to the 270. Ohio, too, isn’t budging, despite the amount of energy the Romney campaign has spent there; perhaps they’re hoping that in Pennsylvania, voters will prove more persuadable.