HARRISBURG, Pa. — The question before Pennsylvanians is this: Is Kathleen G. Kane, the first woman to be elected as the state’s attorney general, the victim of angry men who targeted her after she exposed their pornography habits?

Or are Ms. Kane’s problems — she stands accused by a grand jury of a bevy of crimes — the self-imposed travails of a political comet who rose from obscurity to eminence, only to be undone by her own temperament and inexperience?

Last year, a special prosecutor charged that Ms. Kane, a Democrat, had violated secrecy rules by leaking information to a newspaper concerning an investigation by her Republican predecessor into the finances of a Philadelphia civil rights leader. Late last month, a grand jury recommended that Ms. Kane be charged with perjury, false swearing, official oppression and obstruction concerning that case.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a county prosecutor from filing charges, pending a hearing in March in that court. Ms. Kane’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, noted that there is no charge of illegally leaking grand jury information, which he said cast doubts on the strength of the case against her.