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Years ago, Democratic strategist James Carville described Pennsylvania as “Pittsburgh to the west, Philadelphia to the east, and Alabama in between.” Without the blacks, he added.

The Obama and Clinton campaigns are about to pour their entire resources into this fascinating, conflicted state, as both sides fight for victory on April 22 in a contest that could seriously influence who will become Democratic nominee for president.

Most Canadians think of Pennsylvania as a northern state. After all, its northwestern border touches the shores of Lake Erie.

But its southeastern border includes the Delaware estuary. While its troubled cities are typically northern or Midwest manufacturing towns, its agricultural base includes such southern staples as grapes, horses and tobacco.

Pennsylvania is, in fact, a border state, with qualities of both the North and the South, which is why so much of the Civil War was fought on its soil, and why some natives refer to their state as Pennsyltucky.

This means the vexed question of race could play a major role in the primary's outcome.

Voters in “the T” – which is what the state looks like if you remove Philadelphia and Pittsburg – are deeply conservative, and some of them will never be able to bring themselves to vote for a black candidate.

Or so thinks Ed Rendell, the state's governor and a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton.

“You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate,” Mr. Rendell said, rather controversially, last month.

In 2006, Mr. Rendell defeated a black Republican challenger, the former football star Lynn Swan.

“I believe, looking at the returns in my election, that had Lynn Swann been the identical candidate that he was – well-spoken, charismatic, good-looking – but white instead of black, instead of winning by 22 points, I would have won by 17 or so,” Mr. Rendell said.

“And that [attitude] exists. But on the other hand, that is counterbalanced by Obama's ability to bring new voters into the electoral pool.”

Mr. Obama has other things going in his favour: Black people, who typically support Mr. Obama 4 to 1, make up 11 per cent of the state's population. Philly is 45 per cent white and 43 per cent black. Latinos, who generally favour Ms. Clinton, constitute only 4 per cent of the state's population.

Further, those rural Pennsylvania voters might not be ready to vote for a black candidate, but they may not be any readier to vote for a woman, or a Clinton, or a Democrat.

And Mr. Obama has demonstrated that he can win in white, rural areas, though Iowa may be more liberal than Democrats in the T.

Nonetheless, the demographics of the state tend to favour Ms. Clinton's campaign. While Pennsylvania is more affluent than Ohio – ranking 19th among states in per capita income, according to one recent survey, while Ohio ranked 28th – it does share many of the characteristics of those states in which Ms. Clinton has done best: large, blue-collar populations; a dwindling manufacturing base; and cities in decline.

Philadelphia has been conspicuously less successful than the other big cities along the Atlantic seaboard – such as New York, Boston and Washington – at renewing its downtown and retooling its economy.

The race will probably be close: Both sides have more than six weeks to blanket the state with advertising and volunteers, and to call each other names.

Yesterday, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson compared the Obama campaign's demands that Ms. Clinton release her tax returns – they want to know the source of the Clintons' sudden affluence – to the attacks by special prosecutor Ken Starr against former president Bill Clinton.

“I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president,” Mr. Wolfson told reporters.

To which Greg Craig, an Obama spokesman, retorted: “This is one of the most outrageous things I've heard from the Clinton campaign in a long time.”

Presidential candidates should release their tax returns, he said, and criticizing Ms. Clinton's refusal to do so is entirely legitimate.

If that sounds to you like a nasty exchange, just imagine what things will be like six weeks from now, as Pennsylvania gets ready to make its choice.