US News

Willie or won’t he? Obama recruits Bill Clinton, NYers in frantic bid to hold Pa.

Bill Clinton isn’t the only New Yorker that President Obama enlisted in a last-minute battle for Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes.

The Obama campaign made robo-calls to New Yorkers yesterday, urging them to head to the Keystone State today to get out the Democratic vote.

“Can you join us?” the automated call from Obama for America asked listeners.

Pennsylvania’s GOP chairman, Rob Gleason, said the mass alert to New Yorkers is a sign that the Democrats realize Obama is in trouble in the state.

“That’s a sign of intensive nervousness,” said Gleason, who is predicting a Romney upset in the traditionally blue state.

But an Obama campaign official said the calls were nothing out of the ordinary. “We’ve been doing that nonstop for months. [It’s] the usual,” the official said.

Yesterday, Clinton blitzed across Pennsylvania, where he beat Republican President George Bush in 1992 and GOP challenger Sen. Bob Dole in 1996.

“I want the candidate who decided to save the American auto industry,” he said in downtown Pittsburgh.

Clinton made campaign stops in Philadelphia and Montgomery County and ended the day with a rally in Vice President Joe Biden’s former hometown of Scranton.

The former president praised Obama’s role in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

“You saw President Obama working with the Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut, the Republican governor of New Jersey, the independent mayor of New York,” he said in Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania’s Republican US Senator, Pat Toomey, campaigned for Romney in suburban Harrisburg and blasted the “economic misery” of the Obama years.

“He is going to hit the ground running after the election,” Toomey said of Romney. “He’s not going to wait until he’s sworn in, and he is going to start to implement, as soon as he can, a plan that is going to put us back on path.

“We’ve got the right man for this moment in Mitt Romney, and he’s going to start with real change on Day One.”

Until recently, neither the Obama nor the Romney team had shown much interest in campaigning in Pennsylvania, which hasn’t given its electoral votes to a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.

Pennsylvania had been considered an Obama lock for months, and poll after poll gave him a lead that was often in double digits. But in recent weeks, polls showed the gap closing, with some even showing it a tie.

Romney drew large crowds in a Sunday-night visit to Bucks County, Pa., on Sunday and he scheduled another visit to the state today.