For years, local Democrats have complained that they tend to get ignored by the national party when it comes to congressional and presidential campaigns. It's nothing personal. It's purely a matter of economics.

Campaigning is expensive under the best of circumstances, and the national party has a finite amount of money. So if they're going to invest in a campaign, they want to do it in a place where they figure they have a chance of winning. And for decades, Republicans had such a registration advantage in York County that national Democrats figured they'd be destined to lose no matter how much money they spent here, so it's better not to waste it.

And that, of course, presented something of a Catch-22 for local Democrats. You can't build enrollment without national party support. And you can't get national party support until you build enrollment.

But Pennsylvania's status as a swing state in 2004 interrupted that pattern. Every vote in Pennsylvania was precious, whether it came from a Republican-dominated area or not. So in the days immediately before the election, the national Democratic Party sent in a whole bunch of volunteers to canvass for John Kerry.

The end result was that Democrats lost York County, won Pennsylvania, and lost the presidency.

So now Pennsylvania is apparently important again, according to word I got from an unnamed source. Let's just call this source "Huggy Bear." (Get the reference? Starsky and Hutch? Never mind.)

I already spoke last week to a volunteer from Stewartstown who was letting a national Barack Obama campaign worker stay at her house. That's significant in itself.

But my man on the street Huggy Bear tells me that both the Obama and Hillary Clinton camps are setting up campaign headquarters in downtown York! The fact that not one, but both campaigns would take that step in a Republican-dominated region such as York County speaks very strongly about how precious the vote of each and every Pennsylvanian Democrat is.

Not only Democrats, apparently. I may have mentioned earlier on this blog that I'm registered as an independent.

Last night, I got a call from an Obama volunteer, who I assume was going to urge me to change my affiliation to Democrat before Monday's deadline, and presumably to use my new political status to vote for her candidate come April 22. Pennsylvania, of course, has a closed primary, meaning that only people registered with a given party can vote in that party's elections.

I explained to the volunteer that my "independent" status is a professional decision. When I moved to York, I knew I would be covering politics, so I registered as an independent to avoid any appearance of bias. She was very polite and understanding, and didn't try to push it.

Then just today, I read a column in Time magazine by James Poniewozik, in which he argues that maybe journalists should abandon this convention of refusing to reveal who they vote for. His assertion is that true objectivity isn't really possible, that hidden biases are far more insidious than stated ones, and that journalists make a point in all other areas of erring on the side of revealing too much.

So what the heck, here goes. Every year, I cast a write-in vote for "I.P. Freeley." Man, that one never gets old!