Ed Rendell says he’s worried, Democratic insider polls are allegedly showing the race for the state within two, and now The Politico is saying that the race is closer than we think. I think there might just be something to it.

Allah worries if it’s a psy op in order to get Republican spirits up higher just to have them crushed all the more. I’d say yes, except that Rendell is reportedly begging Obama and the Clintons (both of them) to come back to the state. 13 days out from an election with swing states to win over, they can’t afford to visit just for a bit of theater.

Nearly everyone in a position to know thinks the race for Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes is considerably tighter than what recent polls reveal.

“There’s a tendency in Pennsylvania for the polls to change dramatically in the final days,” says John Brabender, a top Republican political consultant based in Pittsburgh. “In the governor’s race in 2002, there were polls just a few days out showing [Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell] with a 25-point lead and he ended up losing 50 of 67 counties and won by nine points.”…

The McCain campaign’s formula for winning the state begins with the notion that, despite voter registration gains and strong support for Obama in Philadelphia, it would be difficult to wring more votes out of the state’s largest city than the Kerry campaign did.

They even believe they can carry a few of the heavily Democratic city’s 66 wards, a feat George W. Bush was unable to accomplish in 2004.

“We’re not convinced they can blow it out again,” said a McCain campaign source.

And in the four populous and historically Republican collar counties surrounding Philadelphia, the campaign believes McCain is a far better fit for the socially moderate suburbs than President Bush.

We shall see. If McCain can carry Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, and Nevada  — not an impossible task — he won’t need Virginia, New Mexico, or Colorado. He’ll get 273 Evs, which is a slim margin but a margin of victory all the same.