The latest Pennsylvania Keystone Poll shows New Yorkers Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton leading the races for their respective party nominations in Pennsylvania.

The poll shows Giuliani leading the race for the Republican nomination over John McCain, 32 percent to 19 percent. Mitt Romney was third at 12 percent, while Fred Thompson — who officially declared for the presidency on the day the poll was released — stood at 11 percent.

Among Democrats, Clinton led her nearest rival, Barack Obama, 38 percent to 21 percent.

The September poll was produced at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster. Past polls and other analyses can be found at http:// politics.fandm.edu.

Of course, unless there’s a drastic turn of events in Harrisburg, it won’t matter much who’s leading the poll by the time Pennsylvanians get around to nominating a Democrat and Republican in the primary. As I’ve complained about before, the other states will have done the nominating for us as they leap-frog each other to be first.

Pennsylvania’s presidential primary is scheduled for April 22.

An excuse often cited for leaving the primary alone is that the weather could be nasty in February or March, thus running the risk that too many people would stay home.

Apparently, it doesn’t snow or rain in early 2008 primary states such as New Hampshire, Iowa, Wyoming, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Alaska.

— John Guerriero