Until about 2¹/₂ weeks ago, Ed Soto used to get home from work, turn on the TV and watch CNN into the night for the latest political news.

About now, he's sick of it.

"I don't agree with a lot of the assessments that are being made," said Mr. Soto, 22, of the North Side. "A lot of the commentators on TV, they're getting on my nerves, and I'm tired of hearing 'the best political team on television.' "

He's tired of the same stories recycled over and over again. He stopped following the race closely after the Texas, Rhode Island, Ohio and Vermont primaries/caucuses.

"All they kept doing was rehashing and looking at the demographics -- slice and dice, slice and dice," Mr. Soto said. "When the preacher flap happened, I would watch [CNN] for a half-hour or so, and then turn it off."

Sign up to be a citizen contributor covering events and sharing your thoughts on the Pennsylvania primary campaign using your mobile phone.
Visit our VoxPop section to learn more and join up today!

With about four weeks to go until the Pennsylvania primary, some voters already are sick of the hype, the endless cable news commentary, the pundits and the scandal du jour. Unfortunately for those who feel that way, it's only going to get worse.

With nary a state caucus nor other primary to serve as a distraction between now and April 22, the media spotlight will shine on Pennsylvania for another month. Those who think they know a lot about the Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, soon are going to know a lot more -- whether they want to or not.

Not everyone is put off by the thought.

"I'm loving every minute of it," says John Ciganik, 25, of Castle Shannon. "To have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama [as candidates], it's an exciting time in American history if you look at the racial barriers and barriers as far as sex that have existed in the past."

He watches MSNBC and the BBC, to get a different perspective on the election, and listens to National Public Radio. He also regularly checks out debates, speeches and other election-related videos on YouTube.

"I really do a lot on my own because of the way the media can manipulate sound bites and speeches," Mr. Ciganik says. "I'm energized. The only thing that would fatigue me is interacting with people who are uninformed."

It hasn't all been about the candidates, of course. Two weeks ago, news channels and pundits focused on the former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's call girl contretemps that forced the law-and-order governor to resign. The fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, the economy's ongoing troubles and the multibillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street bastion Bear Stearns have gotten some major play, too.

But for the most part, it's been all politics, all the time, from Geraldine Ferarro's offensive comments to the incendiary rhetoric of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Last week, we had more Mr. Wright scrutiny and dissection, Mr. Obama's race speech, the presidential candidates' passport files security breach, and longtime Clinton friend, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, endorsing Mr. Obama. Whew!

Some voters aren't so much fatigued as they are temporarily disinterested.

"From Eliot Spitzer to the economy to Bear Stearns, how much can one American listen and be tuned into?" says Kristan Otto Abeshouse, 37, of Regent Square. "There's a priorities shuffle. Hillary and Barry have fallen to the bottom of the list, for now."

She decided to take a mental vacation from following daily political developments after she learned Pennsylvania would be a player in determining the Democratic presidential nominee.

"I know they're going to hit here hard and why not worry about it for a bit and just wait until it gets down and dirty and I'll jump back in," she said. "[Pennsylvania's] usually never a player and I'm hoping to see all three of them, if I can swing it, and just hear what they have to say and feel the buzz."

The silver lining to this elongated campaign season is that the election continues to build excitement for voters who see that their vote still matters, said Allyson M. Lowe, Ph.D., a political science professor and director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy.

"What we've seen in other primary states is that a lot of voters have made up their minds in the two to three days right before the primary," Dr. Lowe says.

There will be early deciders and "traditional late deciders who will live their lives and make the decision when the decision is near, but they're not watching every [TV] ad and every debate ... reading every last blog entry and every last CNN news alert," she said.

Michael D. Thomas had been following election developments fairly closely but lost steam after "less Super Tuesday," when Ohio and Texas voted.

"It is beginning to feel like the two weeks before the Super Bowl where the lowliest bench player's life is examined in minute detail in order to fill space," says Mr. Thomas, 36, of Regent Square. "Only, instead of two weeks, it is months."

He expected hype but has grown weary of small things being blown up into a "game-changing, momentum-shifting" event, he said.

The media are showing more visible signs of fatigue than the public, says Thomas E. Patterson, a professor specializing in government and the press at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

"It's more like they're running out of stories," he said. "The question each morning is 'What's the daily distraction?' and I do think that's taking the campaign in a direction that's not helpful to the candidates and not helpful to the voters."

The troubled economy shouldn't receive less coverage than campaign surrogates and their latest missteps, he said.

"Whatever is different in the past 24 hours probably looms larger than it should," Dr. Patterson said. "From the blue dress [comment] out of Iowa to whether there was sniper fire ... the big issues seem to be pushed off to the side for these small ones that two weeks later don't seem to amount to a hill of beans."

Mr. Soto, while temporarily weary of exactly this type of coverage, fully expects to tune back in, soon.

"As [the primary] gets closer, in a couple weeks I may start peeking [at the cable news shows], but the great thing is it's in our state, so we can experience it firsthand rather than watch it on TV," says Mr. Soto, who saw Mrs. Clinton March 14 at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland and got her to autograph his copy of her autobiography, "Living History." "This has been going on for so long that sometimes you just have to shut off the TV and go on with the rest of your life."