Primary Predictions: Pennsylvania

It's been a long eight weeks since Ohio and Texas rallied Hillary Clinton's campaign and sent the primary train chugging ever deep into spring, but here we are yet again: a primary contest pundits call "critical," this time in Pennsylvania, the Keystone state.

Our own political correspondents at The National Scold are ready to lay their predictions on the line, yet again, though this time around, the guessing seems focused on how much will Clinton win by. Obama himself is equating a close loss with a win, while Clinton's camp insists Obama must beat her for Pennsylvania to mean anything but a Hillary blowout despite a tremendous Obama effort.

· Grant: CLINTON by 6 points.

· Gustavo: CLINTON by 2-3 points.

· Jeremy: CLINTON by 6 points.

· Horace: CLINTON by 10 points.

For details on our horse picks, read onward.

· Grant: Demographically, Pennsylvania is a state made to order for the Clinton campaign. It's rural, blue-collar, mostly white, blah blah you know the rest. So many expected Obama to sort of downplay the state and focus on North Carolina and Indiana, the next two contests. Instead, he launched an ad blitz (outspending Clinton 5-to-1 by most estimates) a charm offensive, complete with a laughable bowling outing and a more successful trip to a sports bar, where Obama knocked out some wings, downed a Yuengling, and talked March Madness. These efforts narrowed Clinton's massive 19-point lead down into single digits, but Obama's momentum stalled after he shot himself in the left testicle with his Bittergate comments. The polls show Obama stopped gaining on Clinton when she was around 5 points ahead, and latest tracking polls show she's back to 6 or 7 points ahead. So it's an easy call.

· Gustavo: About 8% of Pennsylvania voters are undecided right now, and Clinton has seen significant drops in national polling among Democratic voters -- Obama's up by 19 points according to a Newsweek poll. Add that to the fact that she hurts herself everytime she attacks Obama, she's far behind in fundraising and in debt while Obama's drowning in greenbacks, and the fact that Bittergate and the "debate-from-hell" hasn't dented Obama in the polls, and you've got a powerful inevitability argument. If you're an undecided voter who wants a Democrat in office, that's pretty strong incentive to break for Obama.

· Jeremy: It's rather surprising that Obama has caught up as much as he has. Just two weeks ago I would have predicted an Ohio-like win for Clinton in the 11-14 range. Though Obama has taken a bloody nose in the past month, Clinton's negativity, Bosnia and the (accurate) perception she is just delaying the inevitable has made her numbers drop faster. Most polls have her up between 3 and 9 points, about half her lead throughout March. If Obama gets it under 5 points, the other shoe may finally drop. If Clinton gets over 10, Denver may wind up beyond Thunderdome.

· Horace: Gustavo's right, 8% of Pennsylvania voters are undecided, but that's no reason for Obama supporters to rejoice. Late undecideds typically break for Clinton, and the majority of the undecideds are whites in rural parts of the state. That's a recipe for a Clinton surge in points, if you ask me.