Clinton stumps for Dahlkemper in Pa.

Associated Press

NORRISTOWN, Pa.

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton and rising stars in the Republican Party were among the political luminaries flocking to Pennsylvania on Thursday to campaign for candidates just days before voters decide high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate.

Clinton hopscotched from rallies in Erie to Bethlehem to Norristown to campaign for several of Pennsylvania’s many embattled Democratic candidates, among them U.S. Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, congressional challenger John Callahan and gubernatorial nominee Dan Onorato.

In Norristown, Clinton told more than 200 people at an afternoon rally that Democratic control in Washington next year will deliver a faster economic recovery than if Republicans take control of Congress.

Speaking to more than 300 people in an Erie International Airport hangar earlier, Clinton repeated the warning he has relayed at scores of political events nationwide. Republicans want voters to get angry and blame high unemployment and deficits on Democrats to usher in a GOP that derailed the economy in the first place back into power, he said.

“The more I got out here, the more concerned I became that the American people were going to vote out of anger and frustration and anxiety ... and get exactly what they do not want, which is what normally what happens when you make poor decisions when you’re mad,” Clinton said.

Some Republican candidates are leading their Democratic foes in Pennsylvania polls, as they ride a wave of discontent over joblessness and Democratic President Barack Obama, chief among them Senate GOP nominee Pat Toomey.

Toomey, speaking to a small lunchtime crowd in Scranton, urged supporters not to let up in the final stretch and to persuade others to vote Republican.

Clinton, perhaps the Democrats’ biggest political star right now, was heading to southeastern Pennsylvania for five events, capped by a nighttime rally at Temple University with Senate hopeful Joe Sestak.

One of those stops was a rally for Sestak at Bryn Mawr College in suburban Philadelphia, where one student said she hoped Clinton’s appearance would help motivate Democrats to vote.

“We’ve been really concerned this election cycle frankly, just with the perceived apathy, even on a college campus,” said Anne Kauth, 21, of St. Paul, Minn. “Bill Clinton is a political idol for, I’m sure, the majority of this campus, so he really is the perfect person to speak to us.”