Obama's campaign arm expounded on the political memo it released this morning, talking this afternoon with Pa reporters about their short and long term plans for the state. Here's a preview of a writeup I'm doing for tomorrow:

Expect to hear a lot about blue collar jobs, tax breaks for the rich and women and health care when President Barack Obama's reelection campaign in swing-state Pennsylvania kicks off in earnest later this year.

The Democrat's campaign has been in the state for months already -- it expects to open its 20th office statewide by next week -- and is using the de facto kickoff of the GOP presidential primary season to both stir up his base and preview attacks on Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. The president began the attacks in a speech Tuesday, linking Mr. Romney to a GOP budget plan he called "thinly veiled social Darwinism."

On Wednesday two top Obama campaign aides gave the localized pitch, saying Mr. Romney's past at Bain Capital and his opposition to the $60 billion auto industry bailout put him out of touch with blue-collar Pennsylvania voters. One of the pressure points looks to be Bain's takeover of Kansas City steelmaker GS Industries, which paid dividends to investors before going bankrupt in 2001, costing more than 700 steelworkers their jobs.

"It's been quite clear as a corporate buyout specialist that Romney is comfortable with profiting from companies he bankrupted and outsourcing jobs," said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Things are coming full circle for Rick Santorum: he started out the GOP presidential race largely ignored, even Dangerfieldian, and constantly complaining about the lack press coverage. Now everybody from Politico to the New Yorker is arguing (correctly) that he can't stop Romney's delegate race for the party nomination. The candidate has already written off the Romney-loving Drudge Report (for good reason) and the house organ of the establishment GOP is ignoring him too. From Walter Shapiro at CJR's Swing State Project, after watching 10 hours of Fox News yesterday:

I can understand why the show’s producers were irresistibly attracted to a fun-never-stops Romney video of the candidate in Wisconsin being punked on April Fool’s Day by being led into an empty room for a speech. The on-screen Chyron for the Romney segment read, “A GOOD SPORT.” But during the two hours of the show most likely to be watched in Wisconsin (which is on Central Time), the only extended discussion of Santorum came courtesy of conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, a Romney supporter. Coulter appeared on set armed with poison-tipped talking points: “Rick Santorum is not the most conservative candidate in the race…. Rick Santorum voted six times to re-fund the National Endowment for the Arts…. This is not Ford versus Reagan; if anything, Romney is closer to Reagan.” Small wonder that host Steve Doocy said archly at the end of the segment, “She’s for Mitt Romney, can you tell?”

Even Esquire has teed up the former Pa senator for a running kick of the Fratelli Rosettis to the groin: "Some nice cowboy boots, a decent navy blazer, a safe checked shirt — and the worst pair of jeans that has ever been seen on a man's legs in America," this guy wrote of the ensemble above. No big deal though, as Petrus is aligned with GQ anyway.

Pennsylvania remains his last hope, though the atmosphere was pretty down at his event north of Pittsburgh last night, and even close friends like state Sen. Jake Corman are saying a Pa loss would probably mean the end to his bid. He has three long weeks to go before he can possibly hope to gain some momentum going forth into Texas, and has no choice but to keep guaranteeing victory in his home state. While he could have been much, much harsher to Santorum under the circumstances, F&M politics guru Terry Madonna also gets a swing of the loafer at the candidate's chances, in a column called "Santorum's Last Stand":

Santorum’s rise and fall carries with it enough paradox to launch a Russian novel or two. It’s hard to miss the irony that a campaign beginning in a defeat for reelection to the senate six years ago could end with another defeat six years later in the same state. Perhaps the supreme twist, though, is that Pennsylvania’s chronically late voting Republicans may finally get a primary that matters.Enigmatically however, they get it only by dumping the first Pennsylvanian to seriously run for president in almost half a century.

The Romney camp is in a great situation in Pa, meanwhile, where a win should knock Santorum out of the race but a loss wouldn't be a big deal either. Its superior organization should be able to count on the balance of the state's 72 undesignated delegates anyway. From Kit Seelye at the NYT:

The Romney team is lowering its own prospects for Pennsylvania while raising the bar for Mr. Santorum.

“We expect Senator Santorum to win Pennsylvania,” said Russ Schriefer, a top media strategist for Mr. Romney. “After all, it is his home state, and much like Governor Romney won Massachusetts with over 70 percent and Speaker Gingrich won Georgia with 47 percent, you’d expect that Santorum would win there. That said, Governor Romney looks forward to campaigning in Pennsylvania and competing for delegates.”

The GOP state Senate primary between Mark Mustio and D. Raja is rivaling the bitter internecine Democratic battle between Jason Altmire and Mark Critz as the toughest primary in the state, let along the Pittsburgh region.

Following up on a TV ad on Raja's business practices at his Scott tech firm, the Mustio camp has released the mail piece above going over the same territory. There is nothing wrong with the attack facts, but it's interesting for directly tracking the outsourcing attacks made by Democrat Rich Fitzgerald in the county executive race last fall, down to the sourcing from the same 2005 magazine story. One gets the impression from the Raja camp that they don't like the tone of either attack, which was something heard last fall too.

The Raja camp has gone negative too -- just as it did early in last year's race. PoliticsPa tracked down an ad below knocking Mustio for his vote in favor of the 2005 pay raise and for collecting the per-diems allotted to lawmakers. Again, that's old ground but odd to hear in a race between two Republicans. (GOP activist Sue Means is also in the race.)

With the three week presidential primary run toward the April 24 Pennsylvania primary starting today (with both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum holding events across the state), the Obama camp's press secretary and its Pa director are out with a campaign memo previewing its attacks on Romney, the all-but-assured GOP nominee.

It says in part:

Pennsylvania voters know that Romney and the Republicans’ records of outsourcing jobs, turning their backs on the sick and uninsured, rolling back women’s access to health care, cutting taxes for the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class, and asking taxpayers to pay for billions of dollars in Big Oil subsidies while they made record profits will take the state and country in the wrong direction.

While the Republican candidates and their supporters are dumping an unprecedented amount of special interest money to sway the election, the Obama campaign is investing in a grassroots movement that is organizing in every corner of the country. While the Republicans are descending on Pennsylvania today, we have been busy reaching out one-by-one to voters to discuss what is at stake in November.  In fact, this evening we will open our 14^th campaign office in Pennsylvania.

Romney has a speech in DC today before heading to the Philly burbs tonight and Harrisburg tomorrow. Santorum has events today in Carnegie, Altoona and Mechanicsburg. (PoliticsPa has a nice running presidential event schedule here.)

The latest Q poll in Pa has Obama beating Romney and Santorum by 3 to 7 points respectively.

The full Pennsylvania memo from the Obama camp is after the jump: