HARRISBURG — The conventional wisdom: Pennsylvania's primary election is so late that it relegates the state's voters to spectator status in the presidential nominating battles. The reality: Maybe not this year.

With this state's primary still months away, no candidate has set up a Pennsylvania campaign organization, and key people in both parties said the odds still are that the nation's sixth most populous state won't really matter until the general-election phase of the campaign.

But a growing number of people say that the longer that uncertainty lingers — especially if there are no clear front-runners by Feb. 5, when two dozen states vote — the more likely one or both nominations will be settled in one of a handful of major, later-voting states, such as March 4 in Texas and Ohio or even April 22 in Pennsylvania.

"It is not likely, but it is at least now a possibility," said Philadelphia lawyer Mark Aronchick, a member of the national fundraising team for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Next month's big multistate showdown will determine how important Pennsylvania is in the nomination process, said Bob Asher, a Republican National Committee member from the Philadelphia suburbs who is serving as a senior campaign adviser to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

But even after Iowa and New Hampshire, nothing much is happening on the ground in Pennsylvania.

"There is almost no political activity at the presidential level in the state," said Mark Alderman, a Philadelphia lawyer and national fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the Democratic race.

To draw attention to the Legislature's failure to move up the primary date to enhance the state's clout, The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown has been urging Pennsylvania visitors to its Web site to participate in a series of "Pretend You Matter" straw polls coinciding with Iowa's caucuses, the New Hampshire primary and next week's Michigan primary.

Polling before the voting in Iowa and New Hampshire showed Clinton and Giuliani with clear leads in Pennsylvania.

A Quinnipiac University poll conducted between Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 showed Clinton backed by 43 percent of the 462 Pennsylvania Democratic respondents, while Obama was favored by 15 percent and 18 percent was undecided.

Among 483 Pennsylvania Republicans interviewed by the same pollster during that period, Giuliani had 27 percent, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee each claimed 13 percent, while 23 percent had not made up their minds.