Pennsylvania 2012 Why no Romney Effort?

[Kevin]

Why didn't Mitt Romney in 2012 focus much effort on PA until the very end of the race in November of last year?

I ask because throughout most of his campaign he wrote off Pennsylvania as "unwinnable "and instead decided to focus on states that him and his political advisors deemed they ether needed to win or could make Obama  "fight" for such as OH, VA, FL, NH, CO and MI.

Imo this was a very unwise move on Romney's part as PA started to show significant promise for him towards the end and he could have put Obama on the defensive here had he focused a lot more on the state much earlier in the campaign.

As Obama's victory in PA seemed very underwhelming in comparison to his one in 2008. For example, his performance in the Philadelphia suburbs seemed anemic compared to 4 years earlier and even Kerry's/Gore's in 2004 and 2000 respectively. It seemed one of the few reasons why Obama won PA in 2012 was the record high turnout amongst core Democratic base groups such as minorities.  

Then again am I correct in this assumption? Was Romney's chance's in PA really that high to begin with? Could he have made the state more competitive if he had focused on it earlier and ran a better national campaign?

[Kevin]

There was a Romney surge following the first debate.

Not really.  Those weren't neutrals that Romney picked up but lean-Romney types who needed either a great Romney debate performance or a poor Obama one to get them to vote for him.  Even f you count that as a surge it was far mre an anti-Obama surge than a pro-Romney surge.

I would agree with that,

As imo the momentum nationally was going against Obama after his very poor first debate, until the last couple of weeks before the swing against him halted.

Ether way though I feel that Obama could have won because like Bush in 2004 he had far superior turnout model and campaign in general then his opponent.