Below The Beltway

It wasn’t about impressing the blogosphere, or even so much the voters of Philadelphia.

It was all about the superdelegates:

[O]ne cannot say whether Obama “won” or “lost” without considering what Hillary needed to accomplish. There are only two ways she can win the nomination now. Either she must overcome Obama’s lead in pledged delegates (a.k.a. those won during the primaries and caucuses), which is nearly impossible mathematically, or she must win the votes of enough superdelegates (a.k.a. Democratic-party bosses) to overturn the verdict of the party rank-and-file. For her to do that, she will have to persuade a majority of the superdelegates (or a majority of them must reach the conclusion on their own) that Obama cannot win in the general election against John McCain.

Which is why we’re talking about issues like bitter-gate and Bill Ayers. Those stories aren’t necessarily going to impact a Democratic Primary, but they’re the kind of wedge issue that could play havoc in a General Election campaign.

Of course, I noted as long ago as a month ago that it was mathematically impossible for either candidate to win based on solely on pledged delegates alone and that the nomination fight was now all about the superdelegates.

The real question is whether the Democratic Party can hold it’s coalition together if Clinton somehow manages to succeed in convincing the superdelegates that Barack Obama is electable. In the end, whether she’s right or not isn’t going to matter if it looks like she stole the nomination.